340 
ANNUAL BEPORT OF NEW-YORK 
APFLB. LEAVB3. 
known to him, vieing with this in its adornment and much surpas¬ 
sing it in size. One insect being already named, indicating it as 
the first of the whole race, what name could now be found which 
would suitably express the rank and importance of this new dis¬ 
covery 1 The great master was at no loss in this dilemma. The 
larger species was accordingly termed Atlas , indicating it to be 
the foundation upon which the whole insect world rests. How 
many have since been familiar with these most magnificent and 
princely moths, wholly unconscious of the tact and skill which 
Linnaeus manifested in selecting the names which they bear! 
Some explanation of the generic names which are adopted in 
this report, for this insect and those related to it, is also neces¬ 
sary. The name Attacus , meaning elegant, or connected to the 
Athenians, was originally given by Linnaeus to a section or sub¬ 
genus of his group Bombycidje, having the wings expanded when 
at rest. • Schrank afterwards gave the name Saturnia to these same 
insects. Germar subsequently revived the original Linnaean name, 
but most authors still continue the name proposed by Schrank. 
Duncan (Jardine’s Naturalists’ Library, vol. vii,) has recently pro¬ 
posed dividing these insects into quite a number of genera. Plain, 
and in the main judicious as his arrangement of them is, he in 
our view, improperly ignores the name Attacus , and unfortunately 
gives an erroneous location to some of the species. Thus our 
American Cecropia and Promethea are the two species which 
he figures and fully describes as illustrating his genus Hy- 
alophora. Yet, as its name implies, this genus is character¬ 
ised as having large hyaline glass-like spots on the middle of 
the wings. But no vestige of such spots exists in either of these 
species. The author has evidently been misled by figures, 
presuming the white spots represented in the centre of the wings to 
be hyaline, whereas they are opake. A new situation must there¬ 
fore be assigned to these two insects. And as the Cecropia is the 
first species of Attacus named by Linnaeus, after those with glassy 
spots are removed, it may most appropriately be taken as the type of 
a genus to retain the original Linnaean name, which genus is par¬ 
ticularly distinguished by having near the tips of the fore wings an 
imperfect eye-like spot, formed by a round black spot mar¬ 
gined on its inner side by a bluish white line. In the centre of 
