78 
CATOCALA NOMENCLATURE. 
with C. Clintonii, C. Robinsonii, etc. ; it is, however, done, and irrevocably so, and we can only in sadness 
submit. I can not, however, refrain from thinking that there is a great deal in the appropriateness ot a name, 
for I never yet knew one of your George Washington Smiths, or John Quincy Adams Warrens, 01 Michael 
Angelo Jones, leaving any very perceptible, foot-prints on the sands of time, and vividly I remember, whilst 
waluing, years ago, through a plantation in S. Carolina, that every third field hand was Julius Caesar Aga- 
memnon, or Mark Antony Aurelius, and one burly fellow carried, in addition to about 300 pounds adipose 
tissue, the fearful additional load of Clarence Theophrastus Columbus Porcher Barton. In the case of these 
overloaded unfortunates, the grandeur of the name was, like the helmet in the “Castle of Otranto,” crushing 
instead of adorning. In the case of the beauteous and wonderful works ol nature it is just the contrary, their 
loveliness and marvelous structure are such that the grandest names of science, art and history seem almost too 
feeble to apply to them, whilst names of lesser note cannot be exalted by the association, but serve only as a 
blot to deface the beautiful. I believe that all that is great and sublime in nature and art is more or less 
intimately connected, but now, in Heaven’s name, what grandeur, or historical or poetical idea can we associate 
with such names? It is true, they may answer the purpose ol identification, but so would Catocala No. 1, 
Catocala No. 2, etc., for that matter equally as well, but how different when we gaze on the gorgeous 
Priamus Butterfly* what a flood of thought it suggests ! the court of the old Trojan King arises and is “fol- 
lowed fast and followed faster” by each varied scene of the Iliad; the Golden Croesus f reminds in an instant 
of the magnificence of the Lydian monarch and the death of the hapless Atys ; and the splendid Sardanapalus,£ 
of the sumptuousness of that prince; and Humboldtii, § though any to whom science is dear scarce need a 
reminder, of one far exceeding in rank all of earth’s potentates, one of whom a monarch of Europe once said, 
“ Der groesste mann seit Noah.”|| 
ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES. 
-During a recent visit to Washington I had the opportunity of examining, at the Smithsonian institu- 
tes collected by Dr. Emil Bessels, of the unfortunate “ Polaris Expedition,” at Polaris Bay, N. Lat. 
follows 
p. 70, t. A, (1835), one pair q 
* 9 , 
also the 
web with eggs 
POLAR LEPIDOPTERA. 
tion, the few entomological example! 
81°, 83°. There are three species of Lepidoptera, Het., which I identified as 
Dasycbira Rossii, ( Larin II.) Curtis, Ross’s 2nd Yoy. App. Nat. Hist., 
surrounded by the hair of the larva. This species has been found also in N. E. Labrador. 
Anarta Richardson!, ( JIadena R.) Curtis, Ross’s App., p. 72, t A, (1835). A. Algida , Lefebvre, Ann. Soc. Fr., 395, PI. 10, 5, (1836). 
Two examples. Occurs also in Labrador and Northern Norway, and I have seen one example taken on Alt. Washington, New 
Hampshire. 
Cidaria Sabini, ( Psyclwphora S.) Curtis, Ross’s App., _p. 73, t. A, (1835), five or six examples. The later described G. Frigidaria, 
Gn., found in Lapland, is doubtless identical with this species. 
There are also several examples of a Hymenopterous insect, Bombus Kirbiellus, Curtis; and a Diptera, Tipula Arctica, Curtis, both 
figured and described in the same work as the Lepidoptera above. 
After my examination of these entomological treasures, still having some time to spare, I strolled through various other departments 
of the Museum of the Institution ; on reaching the upper apartment, devoted mainly to casts and remains of pre-Adamite animals, and 
whilst gazing on these stupendous relics of a period wrapt in obscurity almost equal to that of futurity itself, 1 was roused from my 
musings by the sound of a succession of raps on some evidently hard substance, when on turning my head 1 saw two animals of the 
present era, 9 with artificial coverings of the texture and appearance of broadcloth and silk, communing together, and at short inter- 
vals striking, the one with a cane, the other with the end of a parasol, the cast of the Glyptodon; every rap caused a white mark to 
appear, the result of the striking loose of the pigment from the plaster which it covered; I much fear I had little regard for etiquette or 
the rules of well-bred society, for without a moment’s reflection I expressed to those disguised Yahoos my unqualified opinion of their 
Vandalic conduct, which, of course, like all opinions unsolicited, was by no means gracefully received; nor was my equanimity further 
restored, after the departure of these poor mindless things, by perceiving on the frontal plate or bone of the same Glyptodon, that some 
wretches had scrawled their pitiful, miserable, unknown, degraded names ! But bidding farewell to the thoughts of these debased crea- 
tures, not one tithe as noble as the monster whose semblance or remains they contaminated, I left the apartment and wended my way 
towards other objects of interest. Ere I close I cannot fail to express my appreciation of the uniform kindness and attention I received 
from the various scientific gentlemen connected with the Institution, as well as from those of the neighboring Museum of the Agricultural 
Department, the latter almost solely the creation of the untiring, indefatigable Prof. Glover. 
Finally, I can scarce avoid mentioning, among the vast number of examples of nature and art accumulated in the Museum of the 
Smithsonian Ins., the splendid specimens of the great Rocky Mt. Goat, an animal so rare as almost to have led one to the belief that it 
was apocryphal ; the cast of the shell of an immense ? Ohelonian which measures nearly three paces in length and two in width, and is about 
four feet in height; a huge Octopus (the Devil-Fish of Victor Hugo’s “ Toilers of the Sea,”) in alcohol, which we should judge to meas- 
ure, with arms extended from tip to tip some ten feet or more, and a single arm of another much larger ; the numerous and most curious 
wood carvings, etc., etc., of the Alaska Indians, their Masque of Death, the Bird that brought their fathers from the Lord only knows 
where. In the Geological and Mineralogical Department, under the supervision of my fellow-townsman, Dr. Endlich, is a huge mass of 
native copper, weighing I don’t know how much, and surmounted by a famous aerolite of fabulous proportions. Good friends, I must 
close, or I do not know when I might stop; you will perhaps say this is not Lepidopterology, why should it be here introduced? true, 
* Ornithoptera Priamus, Linnaeus, Mus. Lud. Ul. Reg., p. 182, (1764). 
I Ornithoptera Croesus, Wallace, Proc. Ent. Soc., Ser. II, Vol. V, p. 70, (1859). 
J Agrias Sardanapalus, Bates, Proc. Ent. Soc., Ser. II, Vol. V, p. Ill, (1860). 
| Tithorea Humboldtii, Latr., Perisama Humboldtii, Guer. 
|| The greatest man since the flood. 
