122 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



_V 



also, a revision of the European species ; the result of which I here 

 submit, although the work is not so thorough as it should have been — some 

 subjective deficiencies pertaining to it, as the non-examination of the 

 neuration of the wings, etc. 



The European Hesperian Eauna is so poor in species that, in com- 

 parison with the Eauna of the whole world, it is almost lost : even with 

 the addition of the much richer Fauna of temperate North America, still 

 appearing as only a small fragment of the whole, affording no satisfactory 

 insight into the correlation of the forms, and causing the arrangement and 

 limitation of the species to remain uncertain. 



But so long as we are without a general system of the Hesperida^ 

 which would meet present requirements, nothing remains to be done but 

 to work up the individual Faunae for one's-self: in order, in the first 

 place, to meet the absolute wants of our collections and special cata- 

 logues, and secondly, to prepare the way for a complete work at some 

 future time. That the attempts made hitherto to divide this multiform 

 family into genera have remained rather unsatisfactory will not be dis- 

 puted, and possibly least of all by the excellent authors themselves. 

 Herrich-Schreffer, at least, who in the true scientific spirit undertook such 

 a task in his Prodromus Systcmatis Lepidopterorum (1868), plainly under- 

 stood its imperfection. It is, however, much to be regretted that this 

 great work, based upon such comprehensive studies, has not been com- 

 pleted, for, as is known, it remains as a fragment. 



already made in the Catalogue which I have received through the kindness of the author 

 (Catalogue of t lie Lepidoptera of America, North of Mexico, Part I., Diurnals : By W. 

 II. Kdwards, Philadelph., 1S77), I would remark, that, of the one hundred and eleven 

 species there included, only forty-four have been in my possession, and that the American 

 representatives of the genera Carterocephalus, Thymclicus, Lintm-ria,\ Achlyodes, Ery- 

 cides, Pyrrhopyga ami Megathymus have been entirely wanting. That the generic 

 diagnoses prepared by me somewhat hastily should have the honor of publication, I 

 neither expected nor desired. How far these diagnoses will be sustained in their exten- 

 sion to the species unknown to me. and whether, and how far especially, the entire 

 classification would have been modified, if instead of a part only, the whole number of 

 species in nature were known to me, I am at present unable to judge. Finally, that 

 .Mr. Scudder, and not myself, is the author of the genera Amblyscirtes and Pholisora, has 

 already been mentioned by Mr. lid wards. The genus Thymrfiats llerrich-Schieffer 

 (Prodromus, etc., p. 44, 1S67) had already been well characterized. 



) [This name having been previously used by Mr. Butler, for a genus of the Sphingidse, it lias been 

 withdrawn by its author, and SysUxsea substituted for it. See this journal, vol. i.\., p. 120.— J. A. I..J 



