352 Wood's Index Entomolosicus. 



O' 



The typography, too, employed for the occasion, is so minute, 

 that, so far as these signs are concerned, it requires almost 

 the assistance of a magnifying lens to decipher them. 



We have next to complain of the great confusion unneces- 

 sarily created by the disorderly arrangement of the species 

 figured (especially in pi. ii.), and by the irregular mode of 

 numbering them. The ringlets (Hipparchk?) and the hair- 

 streaks (Thecl^) are jumbled together promiscuously ; and 

 one sex of an insect is sometimes separated from its partner 

 " longo post intervallo" Then, again {"fiat mixtura" with 

 a vengeance ! ), there are blues (Polyommati) and coppers 

 (Lycae'n^), blues and coppers alternately, and blues again, 

 chequering the surface of the same plate. Why is such a 

 confused medley introduced into the plates accompanying a 

 systematic catalogue, in utter defiance of every thing like 

 " lucidus ordo?" Would it not have added greatly to the 

 beauty and perspicuity of the work, and especially to the 

 convenience of the reader, if all the species of a genus, and 

 the males and females of each species, and the under sides, 

 had been placed altogether in juxtaposition, with their specific 

 names engraved beneath ? We quite long to marshal them 

 afresh, and number them in regular consecutive order; and 

 we have even entertained serious thoughts of cutting up the 

 plates for this purpose. Both sexes of each insect (in all 

 cases, at least, where the sexes materially differ) ought to 

 have been figured ; as should also the under sides, which often- 

 times (as, e. g., in such insects as the smaller ringlets, some of 

 the hairstreaks, and the blues) are of importance, if not essen- 

 tial, in determining the species. The under sides, however, of 

 all the Papilionida?, we hope, will make their appearance in 

 the next number. We much wish that they had been ar- 

 ranged along with their fellows in their proper order, as 

 already hinted. 



Of the inconvenience liable to arise from omitting to give 

 a figure of both the sexes, one example may suffice. In pi. i., 

 Mr. Wood figures the male sex only of Colias Chrys6them£, 

 and only the female of C. Edusff. These two species, it is 

 almost unnecessary to say, are so very closely allied, and their 

 distinguishing characters are so slight, that many entomolo- 

 gists doubt whether the two are really distinct, or more than 

 mere varieties of one and the same. Now, let us suppose 

 that some tyro, or less experienced collector, in one of his 

 first entomological excursions, takes a male example of C. 

 Edusfl, on turning to the Index, in order to make out the 

 species, will he not unavoidably be led to conclude, on an in- 

 spection of pi. i. fig. 4., that the insect he has captured is C. 

 Chrysothem^ ? 



