1895- 



SOME NEW BOOKS. 209 



hundred and eighty species are dealt with in the two volumes, so it 

 is evident that the rate of publication must be considerably accelerated 

 if the two thousand or so British Lepidoptera are to be described 

 within a reasonable time. 



The families of moths included in this volume are the Sphingidae, 

 Sesiidae, Zygaenidae, Zeuzeridae, Hepialidae, Cochliopodidae, Chloe- 

 phoridae (Nycteolidae), Nolidae, Lithosiidae, Arctiidae, Liparidae, and 

 Psychidiie. According to the time-honoured arrangement of our 

 British lists, the first three are united as " Sphinges," and the rest 

 are called " Bombyces," though some other families usually included 

 under the latter term — the Lasiocampidae, Endromidae, Saturniidae, 

 etc., are not comprised in this volume. We believe that they will be 

 dealt with in the next. It is high time, however, that these mislead- 

 ing group-terms. Sphinges and Bombyces, were dropped from 

 zoological literature. The three families included under the first 

 name have nothing in common except their tapering antennae, and, 

 as Mr. Hampson has recently shown, the Sphingidae on the one hand, 

 and the Sesiidse and Zygaenidae on the other, should stand almost at 

 opposite ends in a series of Lepidoptera approaching a natural ideal. 

 The "Bombyces" are a still more heterogeneous group, and Mr. 

 Barrett, though he considers the term " very convenient," is unable 

 to furnish a single definite character by which a moth referable to it 

 may be recognised. A concurrence of imaginal and pupal structure 

 points out the first three and the last of the " Bombycine " families, as 

 given here, to be much nearer to the so-called " Microlepidoptera " 

 than to the other " Bombyces." On several pages of the volume 

 Mr. Barrett, indeed, mentions Dr. Chapman's recent comparisons of 

 lepidopterous pupae as throwing light on the true relationship between 

 the families, but he remarks that to deal at length with the subject 

 " would occupy far too much space in a work such as the present." We 

 cannot by any means agree with this opinion. In such a book, which 

 will be, when completed, a standard for reference by the vast com- 

 pany of British naturalists who collect butterflies and moths, it seems 

 most desirable that the classification should be arranged on the most 

 correctly scientific lines with which recent research has furnished us. 

 Space devoted to the consideration of the true affinities of the insects 

 collected would surely be of value to the collector, and might lead 

 him to use part of his material in some worthy morphological inquiry. 

 The peculiar habit of many lepidopterists of speaking of their favourite 

 insects by the specific name only — " convolvuli," " caia,'' etc. — betrays an 

 exclusive attention to species to the neglect of the more compre- 

 hensive divisions, which is responsible for the antiquated sequence 

 with which these naturalists hive been so long contented, and which, 

 we regret to think, Mr. Barrett's book will still perpetuate. 



There are no synoptic tables of families, genera, or (except in a 

 very few cases) of species ; the lack of these will seriously detract 

 from the value of the book for the elementary student, especially in 

 the edition without plates. A novice wishing to make out a moth 

 new to him, would have to read through the descriptions of all the 

 families, then those of all the genera of a family, and, lastly, 

 those of all the species of a genus, a task which it would require no 

 small patience to bring to a successful issue. The advanced worker, 

 on the other hand, will not need Mr. Barrett's detailed descriptions 

 of the species. Careful and accurate as these are, we would gladly 

 have exchanged them for some remarks on modern classification and 

 a reliable set of synopses. 



In addition to the detailed descriptions of the moths, just referred 



