29 
lisliecl anonymously in Vienna in 1776, but it soon became known that 
its authors were Schiffermiiller and Denis, two of the teachers or pro¬ 
fessors in the Imperial College of the Theresians. Denis, who was a Jesuit 
and was the librarian of the College, seems also to have been a poet. 
Schiffermiiller, whom one would judge to have been the greater of the 
two collaborateurs, afterwards filled high offices in the Church. The 
work, which is a systematic catalogue of the lepidoptera found in the 
neighbourhood of Vienna, is arranged in three columns. The first of 
these contains the name of and particulars relating to larvae; in the 
second, a German name is assigned to the imago, which is often to some 
extent descriptive, as for example in the case of adonis, which is 
called : “ The brilliant sky blue (male) or blue-sprinkled brown (female) 
fringe-spotted butterfly ” ; the third contains the Latin generic and 
trivial name. The names already given by Linnaeus are generally 
adopted and indicated by the letter L. References are also made to 
Poda and Scopoli, and where the names of those authors are not adopted 
their synonyms are given. A great many species, however, are named 
for the first time in the Catalogue. In addition, there are copious notes 
and observations and frequent reference to the figures of earlier au¬ 
thorities, such as Geoffroy, De Geer, Reaumur and others, and in a few 
intances of which Agrotis segetum is one, a detailed description and figure 
are given. Schiffermiiller was highly esteemed by those who knew him 
as a careful student of life histories,and the Catalogue, especially under the 
influence of Hiibner, rapidly became the paramount influence in nomen¬ 
clature, which position it retained until the appearance of the second 
edition of Staudinger’s Catalog. Staudinger, on the ground that the 
majority of its names are impossible of identification owing to the 
absence of adequate description or figure, rejects all such, or adopts 
them only on the authority of the later author who supplies the means 
of identification. This is, undoubtedly, simply the carrying out of the 
British Association rule already mentioned, but on the other hand it must 
be remembered that references are often given in the Catalogue to figures 
of earlier authors, and that many of the later authors, Fabricius, Hiibner, 
Ochsenheimer and Treitschke, certainly, and Esper and Borkhausen 
probably, saw the type collection of Schiffermiiller, and made their 
descriptions or figures from it. It seems to me that in this way we 
know with sufficient certainty what the insects were to which names 
are given in the Catalogue, and that if Hufnagel is admitted to rank for 
priority on the identification of Rottemburg, so Schiffermiiller and 
Denis should be allowed the same honour in all cases where their 
names are attested by these later eye-witnesses. 
We next come to three men, Fabricius, Esper and Borkhausen, who 
were to a large extent contemporaries, and whose published works over¬ 
lap. Fabricius, a Dane, was Professor of Natural History at Kiel. From 
Linnaeus, with whom he lived for two years on terms of the greatest 
intimacy, he acquired a love of order and accuracy of expression. He de¬ 
voted himself to the study of the whole class Insecta. He was a great 
traveller, visiting this country many times, and making the acquaintance 
of the leading entomologists of the day. In 1784 he visited Vienna 
specially to make the acquaintance of the authors of the Vienna Catalogue, 
and to see the collection which contained their types. These he described 
in a work published in 1787, under the names used in the Vienna Catalogue, 
and in each case, with a precise reference to the Catalogue. In 1790 he 
