THE ENTOMOLOGIST'S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 65.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1857. [Price Id. 
THE GKADUS. 
The numerous letters we have received 
on this subject, and the high classical 
attainments of many of the writers, 
abundantly satisfy us that something 
will now be done. 
Unfortunately a union is required 
both of classical and entomological 
knowledge, and also of a good know- 
ledge of entomological literature, other- 
wise we may he having far-fetched 
explanations very wide of the mark, 
as, for instance, that by which a living 
writer derived the name Machaon from 
Madiera , a dagger or knife, owing to 
the dagger- like prolongations of the 
hind wings; whereas a knowledge that 
Linnseus divided the Swallow-tail but- 
terflies into two groups, the Trojans 
and the Grecians, naming the species 
in one group after the Trojan worthies 
and those in the other group after the 
Grecian heroes, would have saved the 
necessity of looking for the proper 
name of a Greek in the Latin Dic- 
tionary. 
Some names which are far-fetched 
enough are rather amusing than other- 
wise. 
The generic name Asteroscopus, syno- 
nymic with Petasia, is recognised by 
every Greek scholar as another mode 
of expressing that the larvae appear to 
regard the heavens “ elles semblent re- 
garder le ciel” (‘ Manual,’ vol. i. p. 125). 
But many are hardly aware that the 
specific name Cassinea was given to 
one of these astronomic larvae in honour 
of the great astronomer Cassini. 
Again, look at that splendid Kitten, 
Cerura Verbasci ; what on earth was 
the reason for calling a willow-feeder 
Verbasci p Simply, as we have heard, 
that the first discoverer of the species 
wished to preserve a monopoly of it, 
and hence gave it the name Verbasci, 
so as to set every one searching for it 
on a plant where they would never 
find it. 
We believe that the subject of the de- 
sired Gradus has been under considera- 
tion by the Entomological Society of 
Oxford, and we think that in bringing 
out such a Gradus, that Society has 
discovered the very point on which 
they can be of the greatest service; 
naturally, had it been a question of 
sines and co-sines, we should have 
looked in another direction, but, as 
mathematics in Entomology go no fur- 
ther than Triangulum, Ditrapezium, 
(Sec., we think that there is no especial 
o 
