26 
Psyche 
[March 
be Amatidce , as used by Hampson? or shall we resurrect the 
old name of Packard, Grote and others and call it Euchro- 
miidce, Euchromia being a perfectly valid genus, but in an- 
other subfamily? 
What then, is the tendency in nomenclature? I see two, 
definitely at war with each other. One is in nearly complete 
control of one field (the specialists in nomenclature), the 
other has nearly as strong a hold in another (the general 
workers). First we have an attempt to rectify law by more 
law, — to improve, supplement and clarify our present code 
by further legislation. I know the weight of colleagues of 
mine behind this point of view, which is exceedingly plau- 
sible, for it would seem as if by either rule or judicial deci- 
sion a million names might be managed as well as a million 
people. But new people are born, and new problems arise, 
and personally I see no end. There is the further difficulty 
that we have only one court for first and final resort alike. 
Its docket is hopelessly crowded now, and yet it only passes 
on a minute proportion of the. cases in urgent need of deci- 
sion. If we wait for this method the millenium will see us 
waiting ; if we apply the rules informally and unofficially on 
each doubtful case that comes our way, experience has 
already shown that we will come to about as many con- 
clusions as there are entomologists. 
Finally we may return to the practice that arose in the 
days of the Napoleonic wars, when the old custom of Swed- 
ish authority broke down. Let each man choose the name 
that he thinks least likely to be misunderstood by his read- 
ers, regardless of rules, precedents and priorities. This will 
obviously lead to inconsistencies, to current synonyms side 
by side, and, perhaps most serious, to divergent national 
uses. But experience seems to indicate that there will be a 
gradual drift toward uniformity, for after all, the name 
most in use is the one most likely to be correctly understood, 
and a name already in dominant use will with steadily 
increasing momentum, tend to occupy the field. 
It seems to me that in the field of major groups, where 
there has never been a formal code, and confusion is not 
really great at present, this is the only true good policy. 
When we come to genera and species, where we have 
