27 
“ Papilio major nigricans alis maculis rubris et albis pulchris illustratis.” 
We know it as Vanessa atalanta. Linnaeus, recognising the disadvantages 
of such a cumbrous method of nomenclature, invented the use of a 
single word to indicate the form, which he designated the trivial name, 
and which, in conjunction with the generic name, was henceforth to be 
the designation of the species, and this is known as the binomial system 
of nomenclature. Linnaeus further adopted distinctive terminations 
for many of the groups, into which he divided lepidoptera. Aria and 
ata mark the two groups into which he divided his Geometry ; his 
Tortrices all receive trivial names ending in ana; his Pykales in alis, 
and his Tineina in ella; a custom of verv obvious convenience. He 
did not, however, adopt this principle with the Butterflies, Sphinges, 
Bombyces or Xoctuae. Linneaeus’ work embraced the three kingdoms 
of the natural world, the animal, vegetable and mineral. We are only 
concerned with that part of it which deals with lepidoptera. Of these 
he described and named every species known to him. His descriptions 
are not very full, but in some way such a wide-spread knowledge of his 
work was obtained that the names he gave found universal acceptance. 
To-day we call 45 of our Bhopalocera by the trivial names which he 
gave them. Another testimony to the wide-spread acquaintance with 
and acceptance of his names is afforded by the great number of them 
which stand in our lists without a later rival. But whilst there is a 
universal agreement that we must begin our researches with Linnaeus, 
opinion has not been equally unanimous as to which of his works 
should be our terminus a quo. The British Association suggested that 
the 12th edition of the Systerna Naturae,, published in 1767, should be 
the starting point; it seems, however, more reasonable to begin at the 
beginning, and that beginning is found in the 10th edition of the same 
work, published in 1758, which is the earliest of his works in which 
trivial names are used. Three years later we have, in the second 
edition of his Fauna Suecica, a volume dealing exclusively with the 
fauna of Sweden, and containing fuller descriptions than the Systema 
Naturce , another valuable work of reference. The new system of 
nomenclature commended itself so thoroughly to naturalists that its 
adoption rapidly became general. In 1759 it is used by Clerck, a 
Swedish artist, friend and disciple of Linnaeus, in a work entitled, 
Pictures of Bare Insects with their Trivial Names, to which Linnaeus 
refers in his 12th edition with marked approbation. In 1761, Poda, a 
member of the Society of Jesus, uses the system in a work on the 
insects found in Greece; to him we owe coryclon. In 1763, Scopoli, a 
physician who was professor of botany and chemistry at Pavia, adopts 
it in a book (published in Vienna) of descriptions, accompanied with 
uncoloured figures of the insects found in Carniola, a district lying to 
the north-east of the Adriatic, in which many species are named for the 
first time. Some of Scopoli’s names are earlier than those given by 
Linnaeus in his 12th edition. Among the first who introduced the 
Linnsean nomenclature into this country was Moses Harris, a miniature 
painter, who, under the title of The Aurelian, published in 1766 a folio 
volume of descriptions, with coloured plates of British lepidoptera. 
To this, apparently in 1775, he added a supplement containing, 
among other things, an index of the vernacular names of the insects 
dealt with, and against them “ the trivial names of Linnaeus, as far as 
can be collected from his works.” In 1769, Hr. Berkenhout, an 
