THE CENTURY AND THE LEPIDOPTERIST. 43 



In theoretical work the century may have occasionally shocked 

 the average lepidopterist, but at the close no great harm is done. 

 The great Linnean groups maybe interiorly rearranged, but the groups 

 themselves remain. At the most, the necessity for altering the 

 position of certain families: <>.//., Cosxidac, Sc^'uular, Anthroceridae, 

 Cnchlidionidac, may be thought to be sufficiently demonstrated. 

 Practical considerations, inseparable from catalogues and col- 

 lections, should preclude any alteration in the Linnean general 

 sequence, for which no exact scientific excuse can indeed be offered. 

 It is mere eccentricity to start with moths, putting the butterflies in 

 the middle, and eccentricities may not endure. In the meantime the 

 new edition of Staudinger's Catalofjuc of the Palaearctic fauna will 

 keep us safe for a while. 



The student of the new century must seek in a new faunal work, 

 like that of Tutt's Byithh Lrpidoptcra, for the record of what has been 

 thought and observed on the lepidoptera in the years. It will save 

 him immense labour, here performed for him. It may be that, as 

 time goes on, the biologist will be satisfied with structural types and 

 neglect species which are mere repetitions of the phase. On the other 

 hand the varieties may increase in interest. Some economy will be 

 practisedj.in selecting forms bearing on the question of the changes in 

 appearance and structure. Great collections, like that of the British 

 Museum, will give the student " Ueberblick," and, I have no doubt, 

 food for thought and comment. Within those venerated halls they 

 have apparently just woke up to the fact that Herrich-Schiiffer and 

 Lederer existed. In the new century they may arrive at Kedtenbacher 

 and Comstock. I wish they had been as conservative Avith type 

 collections. 



Theoi'etical entomology has still preserved the idealist, who, despite 

 the brutality of nature and his own hard fate, draws pleasing pictures 

 on his prison doors. Our old friend the collector of the beginning of 

 the century, in his dusty naturalist's shop, gloating over his treasures, 

 is his ancestor also, Avhose occupation is to beautify the fact. For now 

 Haeckel has told us all, that man appears so late in the sequence of 

 matter and the world, he cannot be in reason considered as the 

 prime object in creation or evolution either, and that man's conscious- 

 ness is so bodily conditioned, it cannot be held as an independent 

 spiritual entity. Against these conclusions we can only place the 

 fact that man presents the highest specialisation of the psychic principle. 

 By this he is enabled to overlook himself and the world and to judge 

 both. May he regard the lepidopterist favourably in the future, whose 

 weakest point is to be compelled to kill his butterflies. 



In the competition for favour, the lepidoptera hold their own. 

 To religion they have given a figure, to art a likeness, and their 

 blending colours and outlined markings may suggest new con- 

 ventionalism in drawing, to please the Fancy. Art goes its own way, 

 the butterfly collectors theirs, but there are i^oints of possible meeting 

 which should not be blindly passed. The century has been kind to the 

 lepidopterist. It has advanced his importance and multiplied his 

 treasures. His soul's content — nc tc fjiiaesircris extra — he must for 

 ever seek within himself. And, after all, this is the only possible and 

 thinkable world, full though it be of negative pleasure and positive 

 pain. 



