194 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [May, '09 



Mr. Edwards says in the first volume : " It is a matter of 

 regret that, in so few instances, I shall be able to say anything 

 of the larvae. Even among our old and common species, the 

 larvae are but little more known than in the days of Abbot, 

 seventy years ago." In the preface to the second volume, 

 dated 1884, he says : "All this is changed, and today it can be 

 said that the preparatory stages of North American butterflies 

 as a whole are better known than are those of Europe." This 

 was made possible by an important fact made known by Mr. 

 Edwards. He further says : "In 1870 I discovered an infalli- 

 ble way to obtain eggs from the female of any species of butter- 

 fly, namely, by confining her with the growing food-plant. If 

 the eggs mature they will be laid." 



He was a careful and painstaking naturalist and his descrip- 

 tions of species are admirable, and he described man)^ new and 

 interesting one in addition to making known so many life his- 

 tories. These books are also mines of information on the hab- 

 its of these insects, as observations on such matters were sent 

 to the author from every part of the United States and Canada. 

 The illustrations were drawn on stone by Mrs. Mary Peart 

 who had no superior in this line of work. His other contribu- 

 tions nearly all appeared in the Proceedings and Transactions 

 American Entomological Society, Canadian Entomologist, or 

 in Papilio, and were always replete with new facts and infor- 

 mation. 



By far the greater part, if not all, of the species described 

 by Mr. Edwards will stand. He has been criticised for de- 

 scribing too many species of Argynnis, but in view of the fact 

 of the great difficulties presented by these butterflies he was 

 probably justified in so doing. He contended that after he 

 described a species its true status would eventually be made 

 out. Mr. Edwards was unquestionably the greatest L,epidop- 

 terist this country has produced, and his great work on Amer- 

 ican butterflies is and always will be a classic one. His work 

 on life histories has never been surpassed, and when we think 

 that all these valuable contributions to science were carried out 

 during the spare time of an otherwise busy man, they are all 

 the more admirable. He published in all about two hundred 

 papers. 



