* THE 
WEEKLY ENTOMOLOGIST. 
ENTOMA QUIDQUID AGUNT NOSTRI EST FARRAGO LIBELLI.” 
\ 
No. 18.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1862. [Pbice 2d. 
WHAT’S IN A NAME 1 ? 
a 6BEAV deal if we accept 
JfcA tlie old saying as true, “Give 
a dog a bad name and bang it.” If 
this were acted on in the case of in- 
sects a great many species belonging 
to Coleoptera as well as other orders 
might be said to belong to the 
genus “ Anchomenus.” But on the 
contrary the rule seems to be, in 
regard to insects “ Give a fly a bad 
name and perpetuate it,” i.e. the 
name as well as the fly. Now a 
great deal of stir has been made about 
names. Some Entomologists have 
become quite alarmed at the passion 
for name-making in opposition to the 
established laws of compounding 
words. Did we not a few years 
back read in the Substitute, a protest 
against “ Nigrifoldella ?” The gen- 
tleman who wrote that protest and 
whose name is either unknown or 
forgotten by us, appeared to think 
that if once such a monster (hybrid 
we think he calledit) as ‘ nigrifoldella ’ 
got a firm footing in our lists, Nomen- 
clature would go to the dogs. We 
must say for our own part, we think 
there are many words of long stand- 
ing in our lists, far more objectionable 
than that above allluded to. Hybrid 
words like hybrid insects, though 
unnatural are of frequent occurrence. 
What can we say of such forms as 
“pre-engage,” “anti-sacerdotal,” &c. 
The name nigrifoldella, has two 
advantages to one disadvantage. 
Firstly it is descriptive, and that 
even to the unlearned. For the man 
who recognizes “ fold ” iif the second 
half of the word will hardly fail to 
think of “ nigger ” in the first. But 
in the second place the name contains 
two real words, and is a mixture of 
two real languages. Against these 
good points we must set the objection 
that it is a barbarous compound. 
But we have some words that have 
nothing to recommend them. Take 
for instance “ Ugppa.” We should 
be glad to know what language that 
is. It may be very descriptive to 
those who understand its meaning, 
but to plain men, who only know 
their mother tongue and a little Latin 
and Greek it is unexpressive 
to the last degree. Perhaps M. Du- 
ponchel derived it as he did “ Sgnia ” 
from Celtic mythology* “ Turfosalh ” 
is another name we should very much 
like to know something about. 
“ Kascia ” is derived by the authors 
