www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Pete Eeles wrote:

Felix wrote:Sorry - it's spelt OSCELLATA.

I think it's "ocellata"

Cheers,

- Pete

Sorry Pete, my spelling is atrocious! I can see the word in my mind correctly, but writing (or typing) it correctly is another matter. It drives me mad.

Similarly, Valesina should be spelt VALEZINA after Valezina Frohawk, Countess Bolingbroke; although substituting the 'Z' with an 'S' is becoming quite common. Is this an American spelling?

Felix.

Gruditch wrote:Fascinating Felix, am I right in thinking this is a Argynnis paphia ab. confluens Spuler

Gruditch

ab. confluens Silver-washed 2.jpg

Cor! I'd say so - that's a beauty! (and a great photo too).

Felix.

Felix, you say the spelling should be valezina after Valezina Frohawk, but she was named after the butterfly, not the butterfly after her. The spelling with a Z seems to be confined to a few British authors: e.g. Frohawk, Tolman, Jeremy Thomas. The spelling valesina is found in all my continental books on butterflies including Butterflies and Burnets of Spain (British authors). Interestingly, Richard South (first published 1906) also has valesina. I wonder if the spelling valezina is an error introduced by Frohawk? The author of the name was apparently Esper, so we need to know what spelling he used. There is also a disagreement over whether the Clouded Yellow should be crocea or croceus, but don't get me started on that....

Misha

Thanks Misha, my mistake!

That's very interesting though; and I have a copy Manley & Allcard's book so I should have checked!

I shall look it up in AM Emmet's 'The Scientific Names of the British Lepidoptera: Their History and Meaning' when I get home, that will tell us the origin and the correct spelling. I should have checked first.

Thanks once again for the info though...

Felix.

Felix wrote:I shall look it up in AM Emmet's 'The Scientific Names of the British Lepidoptera: Their History and Meaning' when I get home, that will tell us the origin and the correct spelling.

I've already looked - and it's not in there (only subspecies are included, not forms or aberrations, unfortunately). Despite this being one of the most informative books I have - the "Taxonomy wars" of the 1800s should be made into a film - light sabres and everything

Cheers,

- Pete

Felix makes some interesting comments on the heat absorption and hence preference of shade of the valesina form . Could it be that in a bad summer such as last year , this would put them at an advantage over the normal variety and hence more likely for males to find them for mating . The following year the proportion of them will therefore be higher than normal . As this is a good hotter summer the reverse should be true and next year should show a smaller % of valesina .

Felix wrote:Similarly, Valesina should be spelt VALEZINA after Valezina Frohawk, Countess Bolingbroke; although substituting the 'Z' with an 'S' is becoming quite common. Is this an American spelling?

I looked on my own website and found I carelessly had a mixture of the two spellings. I've now changed them all to valezina, except for image files, which I couldn't be bothered to change. If the form was named after the girl, then valezina is correct and there's no reason to change it. I wonder if some people thought they were latinising the word by putting 's' instead of 'z' - but they would have been wrong, as Classical Latin included 'z' from the time of the Greek conquests, in the first century, in order to accommodate borrowed Greek words.

I still wonder about some of the 'i' and 'j' names, like Plebejus/Plebeius. Classical Latin had only 'i', and the latter form is quite common on the continent - but then again, so is 'dejone' for 'deione'.

As I've remarked before, the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature is freely available on the web and one can check the rules on this sort of thing (see http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/main.htm and scroll down to Chapter VII - orthography) but the ICZN (zoological nomenclature) is strictly copyrighted and anyone attempting to publish bits of it has been sued. That makes me not want to buy a copy - but it would be a fascinating read.

Guy

Guy informed us:

...the ICZN (zoological nomenclature) is strictly copyrighted...

I looked up ICZN out of curiosity.

Goodness, how precious can an organisation be! One phrase immediately springs to mind: "up their own backsides". With that sort of attitude, I guess they must expect to be ignored.

Jack

Following your lead, Jack, I looked up ICZN too, and discovered to my amazement that the code is now online!! It was only a very few years ago I was trying to find it to solve some query and kept running up aganst dead ends.

I won't comment on their autoproctoscopy, but for those who are interested, the code is here:

http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp

Guy

PS - the code does say:

"All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise), without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright holder".

I guess I'm now in breach of that...

Guy used a big word, autoproctoscopy. I had to look it up.

But what a wonderful word it is.

Proctoscope: An instrument consisting of a tube or speculum equipped with a light, used to examine the rectum.

Jack

Guy, you seem to have overlooked my post above, or maybe you dismissed it out of hand, but I must insist that the name valesina was originated by one Eugen Johann Christoph ESPER 1742-1810. The spelling with a Z was probably an error of Frohawk's, since copied by some British authors.
P.S. I've just thought of a possible etymology for the name valesina. Could it be a reference to the Swiss canton Valais (Wallis in German)?

Misha

Oh dear. Now you'll have to change the spelling back, Guy.

Mikhail wrote:Guy, you seem to have overlooked my post above, or maybe you dismissed it out of hand, but I must insist that the name valesina was originated by one Eugen Johann Christoph ESPER 1742-1810. The spelling with a Z was probably an error of Frohawk's, since copied by some British authors.
P.S. I've just thought of a possible etymology for the name valesina. Could it be a reference to the Swiss canton Valais (Wallis in German)?

Misha

Thanks Misha. I did indeed miss your post - I'm far too old and wise to dismiss things out of hand!! It surprised me that the name should be so young as to be named after Miss Valezina, but it seemed reasonable. As Eccles says, I shall now have to go and change all those names back...

Guy

EDIT - and yes, it could be a strange ancient corruption or classicisation of 'valaisain' or its German or Italian equivalent - the form is certainly found in Valais.