112 [May, 



indebted to Mr. Grimshaw for this identification), Olaphyroptern fascipennis* 

 Mg., 9, 1.IX.06, and Erloptera flnoencens* Mg., both sexes common. — A. E. J. 

 Carter, 4, West Holmes Gardens, Musselburgli : March \Wi, 1907. 



A Natural History of the British Butterflies, their World-wide 

 Variation and Geographical Distribution ; a Text-book for Students and 

 Collectors : by J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. Vol. 1, pp. 479, plates XX. London : 

 Elliot Stock. Berlin : Friedliinder & Sohn. 1905-1006. 



It is just fifty years since the late Mr. Stainton, at pp. 69-71 of his well-known 

 " Manual," deplored our lack of knowledge of the life-history of many of our native 

 butterflies — indeed, one might well say of nearly all, except the commonest and 

 most familiar of our species. Following a suggestive list of questions as to our 

 acquaintance with this subject, he goes on to say, " When these questions can be 

 answered with reference to each species of our butterflies, we may then adnnt that 

 their natural history is known ; and it would then become practicable to write 

 a good monograph of the group." 



The vast amount of work devoted, since the above was written, to the study 

 and investigation of the Palsearctic Rhopalocera from all points of view, has placed 

 us in a position to answer Mr. Stainton's questions with regard to our relatively 

 few species of butterflies in a manner far more complete and thorough than even 

 he could at the lime have foreseen : and the first portion of such a monograph as 

 he contemplated is now presented to us as one of the volumes of Mr. Tutt's great 

 work on the British Lepidoptera. 



The writer of the volume now under review h.as long held a chief place among 

 Entomological writers abroad as well as at home, and every advanced student of the 

 Order is deeply sensible of his indebtedness to Mr. Tutt for the most complete and 

 detailed, as well as the most scientific, treatise on the Lepidoptera of our islands 

 that has appeared up to the present time. It is perhaps not necessary to state, in 

 view of the careful and exhaustive method pursued by Mr. Tutt in dealing with his 

 subject which is now so well known, that in the present volume, the first of several 

 to be devoted to the consideration of our Butterflies, the amount of information 

 relating to each species is almost overwhelming. Every available source, from the 

 beginnings of Entomological literature to the current periodicals, has been ransacked 

 for data and observations, and the assistance of a large and repi'esentative body of 

 our leading workers in the Order Lepidoptera is gratefully acknowledged by 

 Mr. Tutt. 



The first eighty pages of the volume, which is uniform with its predecessors in 

 the author's " British Lepidoptera," and of the same high quality as regards 

 printing and general get-up, are devoted to a general consideration of the earlier 

 stages of the group, so far as the ovum and larva are concerned. The author 

 negatives the idea, still popular in some quarters, that the differences between 

 " Butterflies " and " Moths " are of an essential and deep-seated character, and he 

 treats the former as comprising two of the super-families of the " upright-egged 



