150 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



A REPLY TO MR. W. H. EDWARDS. 



BY H. J. ELWES, PRESTON, CIRENCESTER, ENGLAND. 



I am surprised to see in the May number of the Canadian Entomo- 

 logist a criticism of my paper on " Argynnis " in a style which is not 

 easy to reply to, and which is certainly not justified by the paper itself. 

 Mr. Edwards seems to think that no one has a right to question his opin- 

 ions on butterflies until they have seen the so-called types from which his 

 original descriptions were made, and that the practical monopoly which he 

 has lately held in the description of new species in the United States 

 gives him the position of an oracle. He accuses me of haste and care- 

 lessness, of not having taken the trouble to see what I could easily have 

 seen, and implies that I have not seen the species I have written about. 

 I will only ask those who may be interested, to read my paper* in full and 

 not to judge from the abridgement of it which was published in the March 

 number of Psyche. I will also ask them to refer to Papilio, Vol III., p. 152. 

 It will there be seen that 1 have for seven years been collecting all avail- 

 able material for the better understanding of a genus which, naturally 

 difficult in itself, has been rendered doubly so by Mr. W. H. Edwards. It 

 will be seen that in 1S83 I '^^.d publicly, as well as privately, asked him 

 to inform me how 1 could identify species which had been described 

 by him, often from very imperfect or scanty specimens — sometimes in such 

 inaccessible publications as Field and Forest, and usually, if not always, 

 without giving any characters by which the species could be distinguished 

 from its near allies. To these questions 1 have received no reply. My 

 valued correspondent, Mr. H. Edwards, " whose judgment in doubtful 

 cases Mr. W. H. Edwards relies on above all persons," had kindly sent 

 me a considerable number of the rarer western forms named by himself. 

 Mr. H. Strecker, who certainly has as good an eye for, and as good a 

 judgment of species as almost any one I met in America, sent me many 

 more, and in various ways I had collected all the known so-called species 

 except four, of two of which I had seen the types, so that 1 have, as 1 

 believe, a larger and better series than any one in Europe or in any of the 

 collections I was able to examine in America. 1 did not therefore write 

 hastily or carelessly, and the numerous queries in my synopsis show how 

 uncertain I still felt of the proper position and specific value of many of 



* A copy will be sent, as long as they last, to any Entomologist who will write for 

 it to me at Preston, Cirencester, England. 



