THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 73.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1858. [Price 1<*. 
M I- I N A. 
In the Preface to Haworth’s * Lepi- 
doptera Britannica,’ published fifty-live 
years ago, we read as follows: — 
“ The bright invention and adoption 
of uniform terminations does not ap- 
pear to have struck the vast mind of 
Linnaeus, until he had passed through 
the Bombyces and Noctuce ; but in his 
very next section he applies to every 
species the termination aria ; and to 
every succeeding section a peculiar and 
appropriate one, which he afterwards 
used in various editions of his works. 
It is probable, therefore, he had printed 
his first entomological work past the 
Noctuce before the idea of uniform ter- 
minations occurred to him ; and that 
after having printed the Bombyces and 
Noctuce with irregular terminations, he 
did not care to disturb what had 
passed the ordeal of the wide-spreading 
press, by giving regular terminations 
to them. I had some embarrassment 
to combat in modelling the termina- 
tions of Bombyx, Noctua and Hepialus 
(all the others Linnaeus himself had 
done), several of which ended more 
abruptly, not to say barbarously, than 
could be wished, as in the species 
Tauus, Ziczacus, Castrensus, &c., for 
Tau, Ziczac, Caslrensis , &c. ; but 
these minor inequalities, as my readers 
will generally deem them, are abun- 
dantly counterbalanced by the advan- 
tage that must manifestly accrue from 
the alteration.” 
“It is by the consent and full and 
individual approbation of all the mem- 
bers of the Aurelian Society that I 
have terminated the divisions of the 
Linnean genus Phalcena in this work 
as follows, making each division a dis- 
tinct genus: the Bombyces in us; 
Noctuce in ina (except the Sallows of 
Aurelians which retain the termination 
in ago)-, Hepiali in ator ; the Geo- 
metrce in aria ; Phalcence in ala ; Py- 
ralides in alls ; Tortrices in ana ; 
Tinece in ella ; and the Alucita. in 
daclyla.” 
One is struck with wonder at the 
vastness of Haworth’s project, — he was 
supplying a blank unfilled up by Lin- 
naeus; yet, in still leaving the Butter- 
flies and Sphinges without uniform 
terminations, he evidently left some- 
thing to be supplied by his successors ; 
but unfortunately, in perverse opposi- 
tion to the extraordinary unanimity of 
“ all the members of the Aurelian 
Society ” (who, judging from this, 
Y 
