64 REVIEWS. 



temperature of the seasons in different years must, more or less, affect its 

 accuracy ; but still to know, within a week, when to look for freshly- 

 evolved specimens of valuable insects, is knowledge not to be despised. 



From the character of the work, little controversy of any kind is to be 

 expected ; but, on two occasions, Mr. Morris does battle vigorously the 

 one being in support of the claims of Papilio podalirius to be accounted a 

 native species ; the other, in refutation of the imputations cast by " certain 

 malignants" on the character of Mr. Weaver, the original capturer of the 

 Melitasa dia. As to the former, we should have thought that few persons 

 would now have ventured to deny to Papilio podalirius a place among our 

 native fauna; but if there be any such remaining, and they are open to 

 conviction, Mr. Morris's array of " facts" and proofs from ocular evidence 

 ought to silence the tongue of suspicion for ever. And for Mr. Weaver, 

 we think it a disgrace to English entomologists that any further defence 

 should be needed; right and proper it is that all care should be exercised 

 in admitting the claims of a previously-undiscovered species ; but when 

 the only obstacle to receiving it is, that people choose not to be convinced, 

 and their only answer to unanswerable and reiterated proofs is, that an 

 upright and honest man is forging a series of "unblushing falsehoods," 

 we confess we would not waste another word on them ; for they do not 

 deserve any notice. If they think it less likely that a new British butter- 

 fly should be discovered than that a man of unblemished honour should 

 tell a parcel of lies, we can only say, " Oh, infidel, great is thy faith." 



In regard to the species admitted or rejected, Mr. Morris proceeds 

 rather arbitrarily, at least in the suppression of the reasons of his selection, 

 which ought to have been given e.g., at the close of his remarks on 

 Pontia, Catophaga, Papilio, Ganoris or Pieris, Brassiere (we are obliged to 

 give all the generic names, as Mr. Morris has not informed us which he 

 himself has adopted, and we do not wish to choose for him), he briefly 

 adds " Some have imagined a separate species under the name of Pontia 

 chariclea ;" but there is not a syllable of information as to whether this 

 species differs from Brassicae in size, colour, markings, form or neuration of 

 wings, times of appearance, habits or appearance of larvae, or in any other 

 way ; nor does he say who the " some" are, nor why he dissents from 

 their " imagination." In a somewhat similar manner he speaks of a 

 " variety 5 * of Pontia (&c., &c., &c., &c., as before) Napi, " erroneously 

 made into a species under the name of ' Pontia sabellicro,' " except 

 that in this case he enumerates the points of difference, though he makes 

 no further observation on it. No allusion, however slight, is made to Par- 

 nassius Apollo, though its claims are so very slender that Mr. Morris 



