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to Maine and southward to Texas, as for instance Heliothis armi- 

 gera, and certainly show little or no local variation, it is possible 

 that others, now separated by us specifically, may be hereafter 

 united as geographical races. The important work of Allen on 

 our Birds, shows us the value of minute comparisons over wide 

 areas. But we are very far from possessing the basis for such intel- 

 ligent comparisons in the Moths. Our material must first be 

 named and the differences, such as we find them, exhibited, before 

 we can properly estimate the value of the distinctions we perhaps 

 may at first overweigh. 



To the few intelligible figures of the older illustrators and the 

 Species General of M. Guenee, we have now to add the conscientious 

 labors of Lederer on the Pyralidae, and of Zeller on Texan Moths, 

 increasing the number of observations written in Europe on our 

 Moths, which are of permanent value. On the other hand the 

 otherwise great labor displayed in the compilation of the British 

 Museum Catalogue has been thrown away by the careless and 

 incomplete descriptions it embodies, and it will remain a constant 

 obstacle to a correct synonymy if we continue to recognise it as an 

 authority. By its non-correction we are brought to face a dilemma 

 by which we must either commit an act of violence and reject the 

 Catalogue totally, or submit to the study of a repulsive compilation 

 from whence we cannot derive either correct information or cer- 

 tainty on any one point and expose our lists to endless and irri- 

 tating changes at the dictum of the British Museum. "While the 

 first course is openly advocated by many European scientists, who 

 are in reality less interested in the matter than ourselves, I, for one, 

 must prefer the latter alternative, as I elect to suffer through an 

 injustice rather than to countenance an apparent wrong. 



