182 [December, 
the Greek word which he professed to be Latinizing. The unfortunate similarity, 
in many founts of type, of the diphthongs ce and ce leads to constant confusion. 
And nomeuclators occasionally forget that the Greek ai is represented in Latin by 
the dipthong ce, and the Greek oi by ce ; thus we have Oinophila where we ought 
to have (Enophila. Mistakes like these ought, in my opinion, to be rectified. And 
it may be worth while to add that I regard it as perfectly proper to cite Argyrotoxa 
and (Enophila of Stephens. 
(3) Mistakes in the spelling of proper names are not uncommon — sometimes 
the printer, sometimes the author himself, is at fault. Example, Stigmodera YarelU, 
Lap. and Gory, for Yarrellii. In a note at p. 32 of Trans. Ent. Soc, 1868, I have 
sufficiently indicated my opinion as to the retention of blunders like this. 
(4) But some Medes and Persians are so enamoured of the " law of priority " 
that they will not even permit an author to correct his own mistakes. It is only 
on this hypothesis that the retention of Psocus can be supported ; since Latreille, 
who pubUshed Psocus in 1794, himself gave the correct form Psoclms in 1796. 
Here, again, I should like to ask what must have been done if the printer, 
instead of dropping out the h, had omitted (say) the o, thereby reducing the name 
to Pschus ? Must Latreille, and all the world besides, have for ever continued to 
sputter over the genus Pschus ? 
(5) " Lastly (says Mr. Marshall) a vicious practice has been imported from the 
Continent, and is daily gaining ground. It is that of making genera wliich end in 
-TOMA, -OMA, or -SOMA, neuter, instead of feminine. This extraordinaiy and illogical 
vagary seems founded on some confused notion that all Greek words ending in 
-OMA must be neuter because soma is so. It seems necessary to point out that 
the gender of the different nouns forming a compound can have no influence on 
the gender of the compound when formed. The latter depends for gender on its 
own termination, and notlung more. [And is moreover supposed to be Latin, 
whatever its derivation. — Eds.] Acanthosoma, is feminine by the form of the 
word, irrespective of the gender of Acantha or Soma ; to make it neuter is to mis- 
understand the use of words. It would not be more ludicrous to argue that a 
carriage must be feminine, because it has a lady inside. Nevertheless a German 
illumiuato has gravely propounded this rule, and by way of correction, as a legitimate 
principle in nomenclature." (Ent. Mo. Mag. iv, p. 260). 
En passant, the neutrification of Acanthosoma has nothing to do with " bad 
spelling." 
I may observe that in the aforesaid " Accentuated List " we did not alter, 
from feminine to neuter, the gender of such generic names as these, but retained 
IHplodoma marginip^mctella, Dasystoma salicella, Homceosoma neiulella, &c. On the 
other hand, in the 3rd series of the Trans. Ent. Soc, there are many such forms 
treated as of the neuter gender, and I have not attempted to induce the 
authors to make them feminine. Hitherto, then, I have been indifferent on the 
point, or perhaps I ought to say, passively, if not actively, inconsistent. But now 
that the question has been so pointedly raised by Mr. Marshall, I feel compelled to 
throw off my indifference, and range myself on one side or the other. 
The question does not appear to me so simple as Mr. Marshall seems to think ; 
and though I can quite understand my friend's view, I see nothing ludicrous in 
that of the " German illuminato." I should like to hear the said German argue 
the point ; failing that, I will (for the sake of ventilating the subject) try to place 
myself in his position. 
