PREFACE. 



Any persons, here or in foreign countries, willing to correspond with me 

 or to exchange examples of either indigenous or exotic species, will confer a 

 great favour by sending me a line to that effect. 



Also any one having undescribecl or hitherto unfigured species, either but- 

 terflies or moths, native or exotic, will confer a great favour by loaning them 

 for the purpose of illustration and description in the work on " Lepidoptera '' 

 \\hichlamat present publishing in monthly parts; the greatest care will 

 always be taken of all such examples intrusted to me, and they will be 

 promptly returned as soon as described and figured, and a guarantee given to 

 that effect whenever required; in such cases all credit, of course, will be duly 

 given to the discoverer. 



I will cheerfully an.l gratuitously identify specimens of butterflies and 

 moths sent to me for that purpose; where persons have them in duplicate the 

 best plan is to put numbers on the specimens sent, corresponding with those 

 on the specimens in their collections, and I need only write the names after 

 the numbers, thus: No. 7 is Papilio Eurymedon ; you look at No, 7 in your 

 collection and see in a moment that that is the species meant. Where you have 

 only a single specimen, and wish it returned, it is of course unnecessary to 

 affix any number, as I can write the name on a small slip of paper and stick 

 it on the pin of the insect to be returned. 



If I have in these pages failed to meet all the requirements of the case, I 

 trust no one interested in the science will hesitate to write to me, for 1 am 

 always equally as willing and glad to receive information as I am at all times 

 to impart any, as far as lies within my power. It would be a churl indeed 

 who would fail to answer an appeal from one who is traveling the same road 

 that in bygone days he had traversed. I shall never forget when a little boy 

 how my heart bounded when one day Prof. Jos. Leidy took me into the base- 

 ment of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and pointing to the 

 books on Entomology told me I had permission to examine their contents. 

 Great God what a Heaven opened to me ! my books on natural history pre- 

 viously were sundry of the " Peter Parley" suite; with what contempt I 

 looked ever thereafter at the venerable Peter, as pictured on the first page, in 

 knee breeches, surrounded by his numerous descendants who were supposed to 

 be listening with eyes, mouths, ears all extended, to his accounts of vam- 

 pyres, cockroaches half a foot long, and the inevitable tarantula, that after 

 biting people looked at them till they danced themselves to death ; but aias, 

 the once treasured u Peter Parley '' books had served their time, and their 

 place knew them no more. How I now reveled in the treasures of old 

 Cramer, in Donovan, in the wonderful Thesaurus of Mad. Merian, in inde- 

 fatigable Hubner, and in dust ad libitum. How I gazed wonder-struck on 

 the great African Saturnidae depicted by the old authors, never dreaming 

 that I should ever become the happy possessor of such treasures. Time in 

 this respect has dealt kindly with me, many of Cramer's and Drury's species 

 and many that Cramer and Drury doubtless never saw, now grace my cab- 

 inets, and are things of beauty and to me things of endless joy. Oh ! never 

 my friend, give a cold look or a short word to those who hunger after the 

 truths of science ; foolish questions may be asked you, and your patience at 

 times taxed, but remember the time, far back, when you too were groping 

 in the dark, vainly striving to find the path of which you could only catch in 

 the distance the faintest glimmer. Remember how a hand was reached out 

 to direct you aright from gloom and uncertainty to light and knowledge; 

 show now your gratitude for that kindness, in the only way in your power, by 



