THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 74.] 
VITALITY OF ERROR. 
When an error has once been exploded 
it must not be for a moment imagined 
that such an error will never occur 
again. The fact of the error having 
been current implies that it found 
something in accordance with it in 
the constitution of the human mind : 
now few things in Nature are so pal- 
pably impressed with sameness as the 
human character: we in the nine- 
teenth century are actuated by the 
same feelings as were shared by the 
mixed multitude who dwelt in those 
plains where the Tower of Babel reared 
its head on high. 
A love of forced uniformity is often 
to be found strongly developed in the 
human mind; Henry VIII. would have 
all his subjects thiuk as he thought. 
Though Haworth, as we mentioned 
last week, abandoned his plan of uni- 
form terminations for the names of 
the Noctucc, yet the scheme was just 
one of those likely to be resumed by 
others, and accordingly we find it re- 
appear in a modified form in Bois- 
duval’s ‘Index Methodieus,’ published 
in 1840. Dr. Boisduval left the iVoc- 
tuce alone, but to the Geometrce he 
bestowed the polite attention of giving 
[Price 1 d. 
a rigorously uniform termination of 
aria. - 
Linnaeus had given the termination 
aria to those Geometrce of which the 
males had pectinated antennas, and the 
termination ata to those of which the 
males had simple antennae. 
Dr. Johnson said he liked a good 
hater , but Dr. Boisduval, whose very 
appearance implies an excess of good 
nature, seems to have had an objec- 
tion even to that termination for the 
simple-horned Geometrce. 
Even such a species as Cratcegata, 
known for nearly a hundred years 
under that appellation, was presto made 
to appear under the reformed desig- 
nation of Cratcegaria ; nay, the evil 
went a step further, and although one 
species had been known from the days 
of Linnasus by the name of Prunata, 
it must adopt the aria termination, 
but, a Prunaria already existing, a 
new denomination must be coined for 
it, and accordingly entomological in- 
fants must henceforth be taught to 
lisp Rihesiaria. 
We are aware that many have de- 
clined to pronounce this shibboleth of 
uniformity, but we have seen quite 
sufficient to assure us that there is 
something not distasteful to the minds 
of the mass in this renewed attempt 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1858. 
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