berge's schmetterlingsbuch. 211 



Some thoughts engendered on turning over the pages of Berge's 

 Schmetterlingsbuch, 9th edition, 1910. 



Probably the earliest systematists to use the general characters of 

 the early stages — egg, larva, pupa — in the classification of lepidoptera 

 were the Viennese lepidopterists, Denis and Schiffermiiller. By the 

 time they wrote the Systematisches Verzeichniss, in 1775, they had 

 accumulated many general facts of larval and pupal structure, possibly 

 ■quite unknown to Linne. Antecedent to Linne the essential and 

 main work of the entomologist was the study of the life-history of 

 species, and it still remains a fact that some of the descriptions of 

 Reaumur and other authors, now nearly 200 years old, comprise the 

 best accounts of the natural history of the species dealt with. Linne's 

 Syiitenia Naturae was an attempt to deal with the insects already 

 described, whether in one or more stages, and was, as it were, a 

 short catalogue of then known species. Its great value, of course, 

 was the elementary one of enabling entomologists to know what they 

 were talking about, and bringing under a " name " the various 

 descriptions of the same insect made by different authors. 



The application of the name did not at first alter the general view 

 of what was essential in entomology, viz., the working out in detail of 

 the main features and characters of an insect in all its stages. This is 

 well- illustrated by the line taken in the work of Esper and Borkhausen, 

 who were undoubtedly the two greatest naturalist-entomologists, not 

 only of their age, but from their point of view, with the exception, 

 perhaps, of Zeller, that Germany has yet produced. This phase is less 

 satisfactorily illustrated by Hiibner's works, in which the imaginal des- 

 criptions are, to a certain extent, divorced from the biological account 

 of the early stages. As time went on, and the known species became 

 more numerous, works, to hold a detailed account of the life-history of 

 the European species, became very bulky and expensive, and the life- 

 history parts were cut down to the minimum limits, and Ochsenheimer 

 and Treitschke, Stephens, Heinemann, and others, illustrate excellently 

 the slow decadence from the excellent natural history of Esper and 

 Borkhausen to the mere catalogues (miscalled text-books) of Stainton's 

 Manual and Frey's Lep. der Schweiz. From that time onwards, real 

 biological entomology, as exhibited by an account of the life- 

 histories of species, has largely been divorced from the systematic or 

 ■catalogue making section, and where an attempt has been made by an 

 entomologist to show that he was also a naturalist, as in the case of 

 Boisduval, Stainton, etc., the life-histories of the species studied have 

 been published separately, but the catalogue-maker has gained more 

 .and more strength, in fact, the study of life-histories has been for 

 many years considerably discounted, and left to very few adv-anced 

 •observant naturalists, e.^., Curtis, Stainton, Milliere, Buckler and 

 Hellins, etc., or to individual entomologists who have become interested 

 in individual species, and published their results in the various journals 

 in connection with the local societies of France and Germany, or in 

 our English magazines. 



The ultimate result of this has been fatal from a scientific "natural 

 history " point of view. For the last 50 years, series of books dealing 

 almost entirely with the Macro-lepidoptera, have flooded the British 

 and German markets, rarely anything useful has been collected and 



