Special Bulletin, Hatch Experiment Station of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the Pterophoridæ of North America (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book Special Bulletin, Hatch Experiment Station of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the Pterophoridæ of North America (Classic Reprint) written by C. H. Fernald and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-05 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Special Bulletin, Hatch Experiment Station of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, the Pterophoridae of North America Linnaeus, in the tenth edition of his "Systema Naturae," Vol. 1, page 542, published in 1758, established the genus Alucita for the plume-moths with the following six species under it in order: monodactyla, didactyla, tridactyla, tetradactyla, pentadactyla and hexadactyla, all placed under the heading Alucite. Some of these insects had been figured and described more or less fully by authors previous to the time of Linnaeus, as Aldrovandus, 1602; Madam Merian, 1679; Petiver, 1702; Ray, 1710; Frisch, 1721; Reaumur, 1736; and Rosel, 1746; but, as Linnaeus in the above work first consistently used the binomial nomenclature, it has been decided almost universally by zoologists to adopt this edition of the Systema Naturae as the starting-point in zoological nomenclature. In 1761, Poda published his "Insecta Musei Graecencis," in which, on page 94, he adopted the generic name Alucita with pentadactyla L.the only species under it, and this species is therefore regarded as the type of the genus Alucita by Lord Walsingham and other eminent authorities. Geoffroy, in 1762, published the first edition of his "Histoire abregee des Insectes," in two volumes. In the second volume this author, rejecting the genus Alucita of Linnaeus, established the genus Pterophorus, a name which he stated was given to these insects by some naturalist in former times, and placed under it pentadactyla L.didactyla L.and hexadactyla L. From his description of didactyla, there can be no doubt that, instead of this species, he had monodactyla L. before him, and therefore we must consider didactyla Geoff, the same as monodactyla L. As Poda had already used pentadactyla as the type of Alucita, only the species monodactyla L. and hexadactyla L. could be considered as belonging under Pterophorus. Scopoli, in his Entomologia Carniolica, published in 1762, gives five species of plume-moths under Phalaena, which he appears to have used in a generic sense. In 1775, Fabricius, in his "Systema Entomologiae," page 667, very improperly made use of the genus Alucita for xylostella L. and nineteen other Tineids, and followed Geoffroyin using Pterophorus for the plume-moths. This use of these generic names he continued through all his writings. The authors of the "Systematische Verzeichniss der Schmetterlinge der Wienergegend," 1776, page 144, adopted the genus Alucita in the strict Linnaean sense. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."