use in England are very pretty, such as the "Arches" and "Wainscots"; others are peculiar and less attractive, as the "Pugs" and "Lackies." English names for our moths will, it is to be hoped, gradually appear in our literature and come into general use. The vernacular names proposed in economic works, such as the reports of State entomologists, are often very ugly, and have nothing to recommend them. They are simple translations from the Latin in many cases, and are then quite often ridiculous. Dubiosa is translated doubtful; fraterna, fraternal, and so on; it is clear that the Latin names are much better than these. But see what lovely names they have in England for their moths: the "Kentish Glory," the "Peach Blossom," the "Buff Arches," the "Common Wainscot." About the vernacular names for our moths must come the cooling touch of time; they can not be struck out in the heat which accompanies the coining of a Latin name for a new species. Around their cradle some tutelary divinity must hover; some old tale, like an ancient crone, must be its nurse; out of some melody, dedicate to fields and flowers, must the words be taken which are to serve as the title for the new-comer. Affection for the object, quite distinct from the passion of the scientist, must have its part in the English name, which should also be apposite and express the appearance or habit of the moth. One of the names proposed for a North American species, Ommatostola Lintneri, appears to fill these conditions—viz., the "Dune Wainscot." It is a reed-colored moth, found on the sandy ridges (dunes) near the Long Island beaches. Again, another species, vividly colored, black, pink, and yellow, is called the "Spanish moth," as it bears the Spanish colors. Its scientific name is Euthisanotia timais. It breeds in Florida, and comes up our Atlantic coast-line in summer, being often beaten into the lighthouses with the birds, during wind-storms, or simply attracted by their light.
Our species of moths east of the Mississippi are pretty well known, and all but the very small ones, the Tineidæ or leaf-miners, are described in different publications. What a change during the twenty-five years which have just passed, and which span my own career as a catcher of moths! When, a boy of fifteen, I tried to find out the names of some of our moths, I had great difficulty in ascertaining that there was such a science as entomology at all! At that time, even in Agassiz's museum, at Cambridge, there were not fifty kinds labeled which had been described and named in this country. Now we have about seven thousand names of known species in our catalogues, and from one to two hundred are being added to the list every year. Our new discoveries come chiefly from the West, where wonderfully beautiful species are "turned up." Arizona and New Mexico, as well as Colorado, seem to be perfect paradises for rare and lovely moths.
The reader will have seen that there are two kinds of names, the scientific and the common. Nothing, it seems to me, that will promote
