IV PREFACE. 



iiig, and as important as the perfect stage, descriptions are 

 given of these under the guidance of the same princi^Dle, 

 only such stages as would be more commonly met with 

 being fully described, and the e.gg and earliest forms of 

 caterpillar omitted as rarities and as also too difficult for the 

 beginner's study. If, then, a young student can find noth- 

 ing in this work to correspond with his particular capture, 

 then he may rest assured that it is not one of the more 

 common kinds, and he will have to go to the larger and 

 more technical works to discover what it is. At any rate, 

 he is likely to be pleased: either he has found out what it 

 is and can thereby learn something of what is already 

 known about it ; or he has found a rarity, a discovery not 

 always distressing to the amateur. 



To aid in these determinations, separate keys are 

 aj^pended for each of the three stuges, caterpillar, chry- 

 salis, and butterfly, by which any insect included in the 

 work may be tracked. 



There is another advantage in this restriction of the 

 work to the commoner butterflies, for these are better 

 known in the various stages of their lives, and interest in 

 them is thereby greatly enhanced. I should be loath 

 indeed to treat of butterflies as if they were so many mere 

 postage-stamps to be classified and arranged in a cabinet ; 

 and if, by adding to the mere descrij)tions of the different 

 species in their various most obvious stages some of the 

 curious facts concerning their periodicity, their habits of 

 life, and their relations to the world around them, I may 

 spread before the eyes of the young some of the attractions 

 which lie at the open door of Nature and induce some to 

 Avander into the by-ways for more eager personal search, I 

 shall have gained my end. 



Those wishing still further accounts of the different 

 species here described, and particularly descriptions and 

 figures of the q^^ and earlier stages of the caterpillar of 



