( 421 ) 



of Li'pulopfp.rou^ Tiisecfs (1852), and Gray's IJst of Lepidopferous Fnsccts (1850), 

 both works of Graj' dealing only with the Papjiliomdac. 



The Catalogue of Gray is for onr subject the most important of these 

 jiublications, since it contains descriptions and figures of numerous new " species." 

 The work is faulty in many respects. The iigures are in some instances mislcailins; 

 on account of errors in coloration, the sexes are often wrongly mated, and the 

 localities are not always reliable. 



In these English catalogues we find for the first time nomina nuda of American 

 Papilios, names without any attempt at description, the author of such names 

 considering it apparently sufficient publicity if the name was in a museum behind 

 the specimen. This bad example has fortunately not been followed in the case of 

 American Papilios by later authors, e.Kcepting certain Continental dealer-authors, 

 who did it for the sake of earning an additional shilling, the purchasers of 

 specimens paying more for a supply of named specimens than for unnamed ones. 

 Such an abuse of nomenclature cannot be too strongly condemned. 



During the fifth and sixth decades quite a number of new American Papilios 

 were described by Kollar, Lucas, Menetries and others. Among the Lepidoptera 

 recorded from Culia by Lucas, in Sayra, Ilistoria Fisica vii. (1857), there are 

 several that do not occur on the island. The species published by Lucas in the 

 Revue de, Zoologie for 1852 were mostly based on specimens lent to him by 

 Boisduval, and are now contained in the Oberthiir collection. 



Kollar's species were collected by Prince Sulkowsky. In dealing with the list 

 of captures published in 1850 one must bear in mind that Sulkowsky travelled up 

 the Magdalena River, and crossing the Cordillera of Bogota went down the Rio Meta 

 and Orinoco. The localities of the specimens have not in every case been carefully 

 kept, some specimens said to be found near Angostura (Ciudad Bolivar, on the 

 Orinoco) being doubtless of Colombian origin. 



So far very little was known of the habits of the butterflies of tropical America. 

 The study of exotic insects was almost purely museological. The more valuable 

 were the essays on the Amazonian fauna published by Wallace and Bates. The 

 essay on the Paj)ilios of the Amazons by Bates (in Trans. Ent. Sac. Land. 1861) is 

 a classical work. It is full of notes on habits, distributions, and on geographical 

 and individual variation which were quite new at that time. Nothing equalling 

 this essay has since appeared on tropical American butterflies. However, in his 

 references to non-Amazonian forms Bates was very often at fault, nor have all his 

 conclusions as to variability and distribution in the Amazon valley been borne out 

 by recent explorations and researches. It is a great pity that the material collected 

 by Bates has been scattered over many collections. Variation cannot be studied 

 withont comparison of long series of specimens. The problems of the distribution 

 of the various geographical varieties in the Amazonian fauna touched upon by 

 Bates will remain open till adequate material (properly labelled) is available. 

 Everybody has Amazonian Papilios, but nobody has long series from a suflicientlv 

 large number of localities. The large collections made by Dr. Hahnel — the best 

 collector of bultorflics who ever visited South America — are also scattered. 



Shortly after Bates's essay there appeared a work of quite a different character, 

 but of no less importance. The Species Lepidopterorum huiusqiie descriptae vel 

 iconi/jus erpressae, by C. &. R. Feldrr, contains, like Gray's Catalotjiie and List, 

 only PAriLioNiHAK. It is the first classification and revision of the entire family 

 which might be called thorough. The species are mostly grouped correctly, with 



