Bairstow : (Scientific Nomenclature. 



75 



List of the British Lepidoptera " as my guide, I will expose the 

 subject more clearly to our minds. The generic name of an insect 

 does (as it should) define to what family or branch that insect belongs. 

 The specific in all cases should (but does not) specify some interesting 

 trait, food plant, or habit, but more particularly the form of an 

 insect. Instead of this, we classify them with Homeric, Platonic, 

 mythological names without any relevance whatever to characters. 

 We have forty-five butterflies deriving their names from mythological 

 heroes, ancient towns, beauteous females, Herculean or noted males, 

 remarkable graces, and one, Seleiie, being the Greek for Luna, the 

 moon. We have all these mixed up into one great heterogeneous 

 mass. Twelve names only are descriptive of the food plant, viz : — 

 Gratcegi (hawthorn), JBrassiccB (cabbage), Rapce (rape), Napi (turnip), 

 Cardam'mes (bittercress), Rhamni (buckthorn), Urticce (nettle), Qardus 

 (thistle), Rubi (bramble), Quercus (oak), Pruni (blackthorn, Prwms 

 spinosa), Betulce (birch, Betula alba). Seven names explain a specialite 

 in the colouring or habits of the insect, viz :—C-album, Folt/chloros, 

 W.-album, Dispar^ Alveolus, Comma, and Livea, whilst one only denotes 

 the insect's locality — Sylvams (found in woods), and one (Si?iapis) is 

 named from the common mustard, though the larva feeds on Vwia 

 cracca, Lotus, &c. Out of the forty-five mythological names two are 

 supposed to be typographical errors, viz., Hyperanthus (probably an 

 error for Hyperanthes, a son of Darius, who fell at Thermophylse), 

 and Agestis, which most likely should be agrestis, a rustic. Two 

 names, again, are neither one thing nor another, both amounting 

 to about the same thing — Davus and PampMlus, which were common 

 names amongst the Romans. 



Here, then, amongst sixty or seventy names only, we have a coat of 

 many colours— inapplication, application, and part application, — and 

 in thirty-five cases we can discern no individual treatment whatever. 

 To touch on the moth race and speak of it in a like manner, would 

 be to tax the patience of a Job, yet en passant may 1 say that I would 

 much rather science paid a tribute of affection to modern benefactors 

 like Haworth, Raschke, Stephens, and others, than to one of the 

 daughters of Danaus ( Daplidice), or to a beggar {Mendica). What do 

 we want to know of Actaeon the hunter who saw Diana bathing, and 

 was converted into a stag and killed 1 We know that our modest 

 little skipper would not do such a thing, from sheer inability. Or 

 what good do we derive from the knowledge of Elpenor, the friend of 

 Ulysses, being changed by Circe into a hog ? We know that our 

 Elpenor, strong as he is, does not possess any piggish affinity. 



