44 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



acquainted with the butterflies of that region and their life 

 histories, and well qualified to speak authoritatively about 

 them. The work is a monograph upon the Pieridae of Java, 

 and will be followed, we are told, by monographs upon the 

 other families if the present paper meets with sufficient accept- 

 ance. The work is written by Mr. Piepers in the first person 

 and in English, in gratitude for which we gladly overlook sun- 

 dry strange constructions and errors in spelling, due, we doubt 

 not, to the difficulties of translation and unfamiliarity of the 

 proof-reader with the English language. What part the junior 

 author, Mr. Snellen, has in the work we are not told, but as- 

 sume it to be connected with the nomenclature and synonymy. 

 Mr. Snellen has suppressed Hiibner's generic names, on the 

 ground that he did not consider the diagnoses sufficient; and 

 to this Mr. Piepers enters a protest, not on the proper ground 

 that this arbitrary action is in contravention of the rules of 

 nomenclature, but because he prefers to retain the old familiar 

 names. The junior author, however, has had his way in the 

 matter. Mr. Fruhstorfer's collaboration is not distinguished 

 specifically, and we assume it to consist in general contri- 

 butions of information from his extensive acquaintance with 

 the L,epidoptera Rhopalocera of the Malay region. 



' 'The work is without definitions of the families of the butter- 

 flies, without any keys to genera, any synoptic tables of spe- 

 cies, any generic synonomy or bibliography, or any descrip- 

 tions of the species. Only those species are figured of which 

 good figures do not already exist, no matter how inaccessible 

 those good figures may be. The work is thus most defective 

 and entirely unsuitable for determining the Pierida? of Java. 

 To one already acquainted with the fauna, knowing the liter- 

 ature, and possessing a collection already determined, the work 

 will be of interest; to the general lepidopterist, scarcely intel- 

 ligible. 



"Mr. Piepers is strongly opposed to the theory of 'mimicry' 

 as explaining certain phenomena of coloration, and at consid- 

 erable length in the introduction, as well as at several places 

 in the discussion of individual species, fulminates valiantly 



