84 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



coloration, not shape, of the wings, and in three especially (Dryades, 

 Najades and Andropoda), the coloration seems to be the essential part 

 of the definition. 



Who can possibly know from the definition what is embraced in 

 Napaeae, or in Dryades, or Hamadryades, or Potamides, or Najades, or 

 Andropoda ! or in Lemoniades, "the wings tolerably common formed, the 

 abdomen stout and long." What idea does that language convey? Andro- 

 poda, " all the members pretty badly shaped," applied to the beautiful 

 Coliades and Teriades ! It is the merest rubbish and does not deserve one 

 moment's toleration. Moreover, these divisions accord with no modern 

 system whatever. All through the Verzeichniss, we find that the members 

 of distinct Stirps are ranged by Kirby (whose General Catalogue, 187 1, 

 is the latest work of classification of the Rhopalocera, and the one which 

 for convenience I shall mainly use for comparison) in the same sub-family 

 and even the same genus, while, on the other hand, the Hiibnerian Stirps, 

 families and coitus dissolve into distinct and unrelated sub-families and 

 genera in Kirby. For example, Melitaea (species Phaeton, Cinxia, &c.) 

 stands in Hiibner among the Lemoniades, whose wings are " tolerably 

 common formed," but Phyciodes (species Tharos, &c), which is closely 

 allied to Melitaea, and has by nearly all authors been considered as but a 

 group u.nder that genus, is put in another Stirps, Najades, where the wings 

 must be intolerably common formed, or tolerably uncommon formed, I do 

 not know which, by the side of the Argynnides. The Vannessidas go in 

 still another Stirps, and Limenitis in a fourth, and all these and others 

 stand in Kirby in the single sub-family Nymphalinas, So far as appears, 

 Hiibner regarded the barriers which separate these Stirps as substantial as 

 those between any of the series — the Papilios (Archontes) from the 

 Pierides (Andropoda), for instance. As to the species brought within the 

 several Stirps, every lepidopterist knows that a very large proportion of 

 the Butterflies naturally fall into groups so distinct that the veriest tyro 

 in collecting can scarcely make a blunder in assorting his specimens. 

 And what the tyro sees Hiibner could not well help seeing, but the 

 moment there was doubt he was completely at fault, and as a consequence 

 several of his Stirps have no foundation in nature and his definitions of 

 them from necessity are as vague and misty as are those of his families 

 and coitus. 



The family divisions are made up almost wholly from coloration, and 

 a large part of the names chosen for them are simply puerile, as voracia, 

 fugacia, sapientes, adolescentes, armati, festival, etc. And in assorting 



