Z WM. H. EDWAR'DS. 



flies. Others were found in Weidemeyer's Catalogue, 18G4, and in works 

 of various authors. Any such species which has not been taken within 

 the United States the last twenty years, during which the whole country 

 has been searched by eager collectors, may be set down as a very rare 

 visitor, and good evidence is needed to prove that it was ever found 

 here. A list of such species will, however, be given, for the satis- 

 faction of any person who prefers to consider them as entitled to 

 recognition. 



For the same reason, I omit all of Mr. Reakirt's Southern Cali- 

 fornian species which have not been seen by collectors since he gave 

 them a habitat. These were obtained from Mr. Lorquin, the younger, 

 who notoriously mixed his Mexican with Californian and even European 

 insects, uulabelled, whence Mr. Reakirt was led into several admitted 

 errors. 



It has not been considered necessary to encumber these pages with 

 references to works that are inaccessible to most of the lepidopterists 

 and collectors of the country, and therefore I have given from such 

 works merely enough to accredit the species; but have quoted fully 

 from American authors, or others who have treated especially of Ameri- 

 can butterflies. Students who desire farther and fuller information can 

 readily find it in Kirby's Catalogue, a most valuable and surprisingly 

 accurate work in its references, and which no one who cares to know 

 of the literature of the science should be without. I have also made 

 references to autht)rs who have treated of the preparatory stages, no 

 matter how briefly, or of the habits of either larva or imago, and have 

 indicated this class of information by a special sign. 



In the general arrangement, while adopting the families ;md sub- 

 families of some ol the later systematists, I adhere mainly to the 

 order of Doubleday and his associates in the " Genera of Diurnal 

 Lepidoptera." I have not seen reasons to induce me to follow these 

 systematists spoken of in their radical changes, whereby the Papiii- 

 onidae are degraded, founded as they avowedly are on partial characters 

 drawn from the imago, and almost regardless of the preparatory stages. 



A great many systems of arrangement have had their rise and fall 

 within the last half century based on one character or other of the 

 imago, and it is safe to .say that none will be other than temporary 

 which does not regard the egg, and larva and chrysalis, as well as the 

 butterfly. And it will be a very long time before the knowledge 

 of the Lepidoptera is so complete as to permit of any permanent 

 arrangement. 



Certainly I do not believe the Papilionidae to be the nearest allies 



