28 THE COMMONER BUTTERFLIES. 



were figured. The illustrations, in color, are inferior to 

 those of the preceding work. Both the above works can 

 now be obtained only by chance through the second-hand 

 dealers of Europe, and are high-j^riced. 



Two other richly illustrated and costly works upon our 

 native butterflies have been published in our own country. 

 The first is Edwards's Butterflies,* a serial work, irregularly 

 issued and of which the third volume is now nearly com- 

 pleted. The plan of this work is to describe and figure 

 rare or interesting species or those of which the life-history 

 has been discovered, the species following no regular order. 

 Usually only a single species is given on a plate, but some- 

 times two or more of one genus appear, or a species may 

 cover two or three plates. The wealth, delicacy, and ac- 

 curacy of the drawings in certain species has never been sur- 

 passed or even nearly equalled in any work ever published in 

 any country; nowhere else have the eggs, caterpillars, and 

 chrysalids of single species or the variations of the perfect 

 butterfly been illustrated with such copiousness; while the 

 text is often full of the most interesting accounts of the 

 habits and life of the insects. Each volume contains 50 

 plates or more, and on the 162 which have appeared up to 

 this writing about as many different butterflies have been 

 depicted; of 57 of the species more or less abundant details 

 of the early stages are given and often a surprising number 

 of illustrations. Through this work the early lives of some 

 of our butterflies are better known than those of any other 

 country, and this often applies to species from far-distant 

 and inaccessible parts of the country like the Rocky 

 Mountains. Nearly all the illustrations are in color. 



The other work is of a more limited scope, but has 

 the advantage of completeness as far as it goes, and of a 

 systematic arrangement whereby our knowledge becomes 



*Tlie Butterflies of North America. 3 vols. 4to. Boston, 1868-93. 



