26 
about the same time by two or more authors ignorant of each other's 
work, and has received a different name from each; in others, a 
pronounced local form lias been supposed to be a distinct species, and 
lias been named accordingly; sometimes even the two sexes have 
received distinct names. Again, an insect has been supposed to be 
identical with one described or figured, and named by an earlier author, 
and has been recorded under that name; later investigations, however, 
proving that the identification was inaccurate, we have two distinct 
species bearing the same name. We need, therefore, some principle 
to guide us in selecting the name we shall use. The British 
Association, recognising the importance of formulating some principles 
upon which nomenclature, which had in all branches of Zoology 
got into a condition of hopeless chaos, might be established on 
a uniform and permanent basis, appointed a committee to consider the 
subject. The report of this committee, which was submitted to the 
Association in 1842, contained a series of rules of so simple and satis¬ 
factory a kind that they received the approval of zoologists generally, 
both in this country and on the Continent, although it was nearly 
20 years later before any serious attempt was made to apply them to 
entomological nomenclature and that was made, not by an Englishman, 
but by the German, Staudinger. The most important of these rules was 
that establishing what has since been known as the “ law of priority,” 
viz., that the name first given by the describer of a species should be 
permanently retained to the exclusion of all subsequent synonyms. 
This rule was qualified by a subsequent one, that for a name to establish 
its priority it must by its sponsor have been associated with the insect 
in a published work by such an adequate description or figure as would 
enable the subsequent identification of the insect by any competent 
person. In the main this “ law of priority ” has iq 3 to the present been 
accepted as the best means of attaining a permanent nomenclature. 
Opinions differ as to some of the details of its practical application and 
as to the results, but time forbids my entering into these. 
In order to determine what is the earliest name which any given 
insect has received, it is necessary to examine all the published works 
of entomological authors, and this is greatly facilitated by the copious 
references which every author, with the exception of the later British 
authors, gives to the works of his predecessors who have dealt with the 
insect he is describing. As probably many of the members of this 
society have as little acquaintance with the works of earlier authors as 
I had when I promised to read this paper, I trust that a liistorico- 
biograpliical sketch thereof may not be uninteresting. The formative 
period as regards trivial nomenclature of lepidoptera, comprises the last 
half of the last century and the first quarter of the present. At its 
commencement trivial names were invented, by its close the great bulk 
of European lepidoptera known to-day had received names. Fortunately 
our starting point is clear, we begin with the inventor of trivial names, 
the great Swedish naturalist, Linnaeus. Before his time, naturalists 
were familiar with the use of a certain number of what we now call 
generic names, but when they desired to indicate a species they added 
to the generic name what was in effect a short description of the insect. 
For example: Albin, an English painter, who published in 1724 a 
volume of coloured plates of the various stages of the insects known to 
him, says of an insect which we have all captured, that it was called 
