S34 List of Fap'iliomdce 



Piem cratae'gi, black-veined white, L. 



Melitae'a Cinxia, Glanville fritillary, L. M. Euphr(5syne, pearl-bordered 

 fritillary, L. 



Argjnni* Paphiat, silver-washed fritillary, L. A. Lathonia, Queen of 

 Spain fritillary, L.* f A. Aglaia, dark green fritillary, L. A. var., very 

 pale, L.* % 



Vanessa c. album, comma, L. V. polychloros, large tortoise-shell, L. 

 V. urticae, small tortoise-shell. V. To, peacock. V. Atalanta, red admiral. 



Cynthia cardui, painted lady. § 



f A pair of specimens, male and female, in Mr. Le Plastrier's cabinet, 

 Ramsgate ; taken near Dover Castle, I believe, in the month of August or 

 September. 



J A singular variety, pale buff-coloured, and with the black spots and 

 markings very faint. It was taken, as I am informed, in a remarkably wet 

 season. The specimen reminds one almost of some plant, which, having 

 grown in the dark, has, in consequence, produced its flowers nearly co- 

 lourless. 



§ May I here venture to question the propriety of separating, so far 

 apart as to place in different genera, two insects so closely allied to each 

 other in their general appearance, markings, and habits, both in the larva 

 and winged state, as Atalanta and cardui ? Nature seems to have made 

 them congeners. If cardui be removed from the modern genus Vanessa, 

 so ought Atalanta; and still more, perhaps, c. dlbum, on account of the 

 singular conformation of its wings : the removal of which last species, how- 

 ever, from urticae and polychldros, would yet be extremely unnatural. 

 That the old Linnaean genera admit, nay require, manifold subdivisions, 

 more especially now that there has been such a vast accession of newly 

 discovered species since the days of the great Swede, no one at all 

 acquainted with the subject will dispute : but it is very possible, and very 

 common, to run from one extreme into its opposite; and, in avoiding 

 Scylla, to fall into Charybdis. Is not the modern rage for multiplying 

 genera carried beyond all reasonable bounds ? and does not the practice 

 tend rather to encumber than to advance what is called the science of natu- 

 ral history, as well as to deter many from the pursuit of it ? Perhaps I 

 shall be told that I have not sufficiently studied generic characters ; and 

 that, if I had done so, I should be at once reconciled to all the innovations 

 that have been introduced. It does appear to me, however, that the 

 systematists of the present day are occasionally guilty of what may be 

 proverbially called " splitting hairs," or " spinning too fine : " and the 

 unavoidable consequence is, that each department of natural history is 

 now so clogged with a multiplicity of additional hard names, that many a 

 systematic work becomes no better than a sealed book to all but the pro- 

 foundly scientific, who can devote not their leisure merely, but their 

 entire undivided attention, to the subject. " The professional students," 

 says a pleasing modern writer, " ought to be to society what pioneers are 

 to an army on its march, — they should go before it and clear the way, so 

 that it may advance the faster. But if the pioneers were to block up the 

 way behind them, just in order to make their own progress the more rapid, 

 it would be difficult to point out the advantage that they would be to the 

 army." (British Naturalist^ vol. i., introduction, p. 10.) I have been led 

 into these remarks, so far as they apply to the case of the two insects above 

 mentioned, more particularly by having lately observed, in the rich cabinet 

 of my friend Mr. Haworth, a species (of Vanessa, must I say, or of Cyn- 

 thia ?) precisely intermediate as to colour, and markings, and general appear- 

 ance : an exact "connecting link" between Atalanta and cardui. Of 

 this interesting species Mr, Haworth possesses two examples; one from 



