REVIEWS. 37 



For every one who is open to conviction this, I fancy, will be conclusive. 



Once more, the reviewer thinks that I should have said more as to the 

 non-specific identity of Pontia chariclcea and P. sabellicce respectively, with 

 P. brassicce and P. napi, but here I differ altogether from him, the fact 

 being that every shade of intermediate variety is to be met with; the 

 prominent differences being only exhibited in the spring and autumnal broods 

 of one and the self-same insect in each case. 



Again, he says that I ought to have admitted Chrysophantis chriseis. 

 Hippothoe, and Viryaurea, "the first and last of which can scarcely be 

 denied." unless I consider them extinct. Hereon I remark that Mr. Double- 

 day has excluded every one of these species, and I believe Mr. Westwood 

 also, in his second edition. 



The writer, though he does not say so, seems to hint that I should 

 not have admitted Vanessa Jiuntera, as I expressly call it an American 

 species. It is, however, an undoubted fact that, a specimen was captured 

 on the wing in England, by Captain Blomer, and 1 therefore decidedly 

 admit it, in precisely the same way that I, as all other writers, admit 

 many birds as British on the ground of the occurrence of single specimens; 

 for instance, the Spine-tailed Swallow, though an Australian species. It 

 was the dictum of Dale, (though he will not, as I have shewn, act on it 

 in the case of Hampstediensis,) and one of which I fully approve, that if a 

 credible witness positively asserts a fact as of his own knowledge, the 

 statement of such fact ought to be believed, unless positive proof to the 

 contrary be shown. 



Here too he remarks on my saying of Argynnis aphrodite, that one was 

 taken in a "wild state." The plain meaning was, that the specimen being 

 taken, as I stated, in a midland county, and in a wood a few miles from 

 a town, precluded the idea of its having been accidently imported, which 

 might have been more readily imagined if it had occurred in the 

 vicinity of a sea-port town. The reviewer here seems, I think, to be 

 rather hypercritical. I see no reason to alter the expression in any future 

 edition. 



Lastly, the worthy reviewer would rather that the book had not contained 

 the many discursive paragraphs I here and there inserted. He would, it 

 seems, have preferred dry details exclusively. Here too, however, I am 

 "of the same opinion still," and not "convinced" either against or with 

 my will. These are to my mind the very source of the popularity of the 

 book, and of the many letters I have received from all parts of the 

 country, expressive of the pleasure of the readers with it. Why should 

 a reviewer's opinion be worth more than that of any other individual? and 

 if I have fifty to his one, am I to agree with the one or the fifty? 

 Not one of them can I afford to lose; and least of all can I coincide 



VOL. VII. G 



