THE ENTOLOMOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCEK. 183 
names being that of the genus, and indi- 
cating the relationship of the creature 
with other butterflies, whilst the latter was 
employed to distinguish it from every 
other known species or kind of butterfly, 
aud thus became its specific name, which, 
in this, as in many other cases, was, by 
an elegant fiction of Linnoeus, of classic 
origin, the butterfly, in allusion to its 
strong powers of flight, being designated 
by the name of a celebrated beauty of 
Ovid, who made all her lovers race with 
her, on the penalty of death if they did 
not catch her. 
We have said that this binomial system 
of names has become of almost universal 
adoption among naturalists. Recently, 
however, an attempt has been made in 
France to introduce a mononymic system, 
by using only the Linnean speciflc name 
and omitting the generic one; and in- 
deed, in many instances, it is useless to 
employ more than the former, where, for 
instance, the object is thoroughly well 
known, and there is no fear of confound- 
ing it with other closely-allied species; 
for example, until lately no one in Eng- 
land would have thought it necessary, in 
speaking of the common partridge, to use 
more than the single name of partridge ; 
but now that another species, the red- 
legged partridge, has been introduced, it 
becomes necessary, to avoid all doubt, to 
employ a second name for the more com- 
mon bird ; so that the word “partridge” 
is no longer a speciflc one, as it was be- 
fore, but becomes a generic one, whilst 
the additional names, “ common ” and 
“ red-legged,” indicate the two species. 
In objects, however, but little known, as, 
for instance, in ninety-nine out of every 
hundred of the Lepidopterous insects of 
Great Britain, the employment of single 
names would be only a source of per- 
petual doubt and uncertainty. Moreover, 
the analogy afforded by the system of 
names of families and individuals among 
men is of some weight in the matter-; 
thus, to speak of David, every one of 
course concludes that the Psalmist is in- 
tended, but if, talking of celebrated Eng- 
lishmen, we were to speak of David, 
people would not know whether it was 
to David Hume or David Garrick that 
allusion was made ; here Hume and Gar- 
rick become as it were the generic names, 
and David the specific or special one. 
We have alluded above to the re- 
markable impulse given to the pursuit 
of Natural History, and especially of 
Entomology, during the last few years, 
aud it has been worthy both of remark 
and congratulation that this taste has 
shown itself among the lower orders to 
a very great extent. The Spitalfield 
weavers, the Sheffield cutlers and the 
Manchester cotton-spinners are amongst 
the most successful collectors of insects, 
as well as great amateurs of birds and 
flowers. To these men, as well as to the 
majority of the young of the middle 
classes, who are attracted to this pursuit, 
it is not surprising that the classical 
names of plants and insects should at 
first be great sources of trouble, and that 
they should be constantly mispronounced 
and falsely accentuated. That, e. g. 
Psyche, the name employed for a genus 
of moths, should be an especial stumbling- 
block, and pronounced in all sorts of 
ways, is of course to be expected. Even 
much simpler names are difficult enough 
to such persons, of which an instance 
came under our especial notice, in the 
garden of a nobleman famous for his love 
of roses. The gardener was expatiating 
on the especial merits of a new kind, 
which he called the utmikeg, aud it was 
not until we asked for and saw the label 
that we were enabled to determine that 
it was the “ Rose unique” which was in- 
tended. It is to supply the true deriva- 
tion as well as the accentuation of these 
names, as applied to English butterflies 
and moths, that the Entomological So- 
cieties of Oxford and Cambridge have 
jointly published an accentuated and de- 
rivative catalogue of British Lepidoptera. 
