Cly (iDanabian Entomologist 



TOL. VIII. LONDON, ONT., AUGUST, 1876. No. 8 



INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE GENERA OF MR. SCUDDER'S 



"SYSTEMATIC REVISION." 



BY S. H. PEABODY, CHICAGO, ILL. 



Soon after the issue of the " Systematic Revision," and while I was 

 trying to master the intricacies of its analysis, it occurred to me to tabu- 

 late the generic descriptions in some family, if, haply, I might thus 

 discover the exact points of discrimination. By chance I took first the 

 tribe Adolescentes, producing the table which accompanies this paper. In 

 this table, if any expression or word which could distort the obvious 

 meaning of the author, has been omitted or wrested from its proper con- 

 nection, such change has been through inadvertence or mistake. In like 

 manner I have tabulated the Dryades, the Hamadryades, the Equites, the 

 Voracia, the Fugacia ; I confess that when I came to the work of com- 

 paring phrase by phrase the five page descriptions o( the genera Papilio 

 and Aglais, my heart failed me. I resolved to wait until my unfledged 

 pinions were equal to these lower and briefer flights of the scientific 

 imagination before attempting this more extended journey. 



In view of the introductory passages of the " Revision ' which 

 promised to remove " the reproach of Lepidopterists," it was with no 

 little concern that I found my tables "insufficient " ; that I was unable to 

 distinguish the differences between the genera grouped in the Adoles- 

 centes, or the Equites, or the rest. I have waited now nearly four years 

 for some Philip to say " understandest thou what thou readest ?" and to 

 give such elucidation that I could go on in joyful belief. No such apostle 

 of the new-antique has appeared, and I venture to offer this table, with a 

 few thoughts, to my entomological brethren. 



The analyses of these generic descriptions show two items : First, 

 that many of the differences expressed exist only in the phraseology, either 

 indicating no differences, whatever, in fact, or differences so slight as to 

 be purely opinionative j second, that other differences are such that they 



