THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 247 



these investigations, among the first being that of the seasonal trimorphism 

 of Papilio ajax and the dimorphism of Grapta interrogationis and of 

 Grapta comma. The process of breeding was soon taken up by Mr. 

 Edwards's friends and correspondents scattered over North America, and, 

 aided by the general extension of railways over the continent, he was able 

 to get eggs of butterflies from widely distant localities and to follow them 

 successfuUy through all their stages. It is due to his efforts that the 

 reproach of ignorance of the preparatory states of our butterflies has largely 

 been removed, and though much even now remains to be learnt, vast 

 progress has been made. The first part of the third series was issued in 

 December, 1886; the eighteenth and last in 1897. Far from showing any 

 decline from the author's high standard of excellence, the last issues were 

 regarded at the time as the climax of good work, both on the part of the 

 writer and the artist. In his third volume nearly half of the fifty-one plates 

 are devoted to the alpine or subarctic species of the Satyrina;, and every 

 species of North American Chionobas, except the Labrador Taygete, is 

 figured; of twelve species the various life-stages are fully described and 

 protrayed with a wealth of detail of larval characteristics. As the author 

 states in the preface, "Until these plates appeared no Erebia and no 

 Chionobas, except Semidea, either in Europe or America, was known in 

 its preparatory stages." All through Mr. Edwards was fortunate in having 

 his wishes ably carried out by his artist-assistants, one of whom, Mrs. 

 Mary Peart, not only drew most accurately nearly all the plates, but in 

 order to do so satisfactorily, reared a large number of the caterpillars j the 

 exquisite colouring by Mrs. Lydia Bowen could not be surpassed. The 

 three large volumes make up a work on the life-histories of butterflies 

 which has no equal anywhere. The accuracy and beauty of the plates 

 are all that can be desired and the pages are filled with original descrip- 

 tions and observations of many of our rarest butterflies, as well as particulars 

 previously unknown of a large number of more familiar species. It will 

 long continue to be an authoritative book of reference and to form the 

 foundation of all further studies of these most interesting and lovely 

 creatures. 



Mr. Edwards was seventy-five years old when he gave up his studies 

 of butterflies, feeling, no doubt, that his advanced age precluded him from 

 carrying on further investigations with the ability and success that he had 

 so remarkably displayed. Far from being idle, however, he became a 

 spirited combatant in the Shakespearean controversy, and in 1900 published 



