INTRODUCTION. 
XI 
apicosa, while Guenee has a Renodes apicosa, a native of Brazil, a 
totally distinct species.” 
“ It is needless to occupy more space to prove the serious inconve¬ 
nience inevitably connected with the promulgation of such a sys¬ 
tem at the present time. ‘ Priority ’ and priority alone , of 
description, should be adopted as the only safe rule to avoid confu¬ 
sion ; but it is not always an easy matter to arrive at the oldest name 
as previously mentioned, and which may be further instanced by a 
reference to Guenee’s remark, vol. v. (i.) p. 110, on Nonagria 
lutosa: he there states that he has effaced the name Bathyerga, 
as being posterior to lutosa of Hiibner, although in his Index 
in the French ‘ Annales,’ vol. x. p. 237 (1841) he considers the 
latter as a different species, removed by several intermediate 
ones from lutosa! thus showing that his views have changed with 
time; a quality he scarcely allows to others ; as gathered from the 
very note on the species in question : in which, after stating that it 
is ‘ assez commune en Angleterre, et varie extremement pour lataille 
et pour la couleur;’ he adds, ‘nevertheless (Neanmoins) M. Stephens 
a cree a ses depens, outre le type, deux autres especes,’ viz., pili- 
cornis and Cannae : the anachronism of these sentences renders 
them particularly, though doubtless unintentionally, unfair. In 
1810 only one example of the species (called then crassicornis by 
Haworth) was known, a second (pilicornis, Haw.) in 1812, and two 
others before 1830, all captured in distant places and remarkably 
unlike each other, one only (called Cannae), being smaller than the 
others: between the period last-mentioned and 1842, two or three 
other specimens only occurred, but after that time, by ‘ sugaring,’ 
the insect was discovered to be abundant. Now as the supposed 
distinct species—crassicornis, pilicornis, and Cannae—were so intro¬ 
duced in the ‘Illustrations,’ in 1829, and the paucity of specimens 
