■62 THE entomologist's record. 



Gastropacha ilicifolia, and Ennomox alniaria, Avhich are now well- 

 established. In 1841, the first edition of Humphreys and Westwood's 

 British Moths appeared, and two years later their volume on ButterHies. 

 Every entomologist of that day will remember the eagerness with 

 which we used to look for the successive parts of this work as they 

 came out. The plates were beautifully drawn and coloured, and the 

 letterpress comprehensive, and completely up to date, and the impetus 

 given to the study by the above mentioned cheap books, caused the 

 first edition to be soon out of print, and subsequent ones were brought 

 out ; but the first is that still prized by lepidopterists, for the artistic 

 excellency of the figures. 



But the world had not yet seen the man, who above all others, 

 was to give such a fillip to the study of our British lepidoptera, as to 

 set it goinp: with a bound from which, even to-day, it has not ceased 

 to move. It has been said that there is only room for one great 

 man in one line in one generation, and the " great man " in his 

 generation, if not in all generations, in our line, was the late Henry 

 Tibbatts Stainton. In the first place, he was a man of Avealth, always 

 a great power, and he used it to spread a love of what he himself 

 loved — the study of Lepidoptera. He was a man of kindly disposition, 

 and by his manner won the affection of those who came in contact 

 with him, and by this means got hold of people, especially young people, 

 and bound their minds into this particular groove. He used to call 

 his followers together at his house, and throw his collections open to 

 them, and on Saturday afternoons meet them fur out-door work. Some 

 entomologists still living remember those happy meetings in Burnt 

 Ash Lane, preparatory to starting on these collecting expeditions. 

 Stainton had another wonderful gift — that of accurately describing 

 in a very few words what he saw. His first published work was The 

 Natural History of the Tineina, which he began in 1855. The 

 object of this work, as stated in the preface, was to give— in word and 

 picture —the life-histories of our smaller moths, and to combine the 

 labours of collector and student. The first volume depicted the life- 

 histories of 21 species of Nepticula, and three of Ceriostoma. The 

 plates were excellent, and the letterpress printed in four languages. In 

 the preface the author makes the offer that if anyone would send him 

 20 species of micro-lepidopterous larvae, previously unknown to him, 

 he would present him with a copy of the entire work. This offer, with 

 the beauty of the plates, and the plain, attractive, one might almost 

 say, fascinating style of his writing, caused many to turn their 

 attention to this hitherto neglected group of moths, and subsequent 

 volumes appeared yearly for 13 years, when the work abruptly came 

 to a termination, much to the regret of every lepidopterist ; and what 

 is still more to be regretted, no one else has ventured to give us the 

 continuation. Two years after The Natural History of the Tineina 

 had begun to appear, Stainton started his famous Manual, and in this 

 work his power of accurate concise description is seen at its best. That 

 was a book which marked an epoch in the study of our British lepi- 

 doptera. Students sprang up on every side, the crooked path was 

 made straight, and Stainton's Manual, which came out in monthly 

 numbers, was eagerly looked forward to, and greedily devoured, by scores 

 of collectors, who, by it and The Litelliyencer, were made enthusiastic in 

 their pursuit. The edition of this book must have been very large, 

 numbers were sold, and though forty years have passed since it issued 

 from the press, the publishers still have it for sale. In 1859, the 



