232 The entomologist's record. 



Ljjonetiidae is here separated. Another little change which does not 

 affect the total number is the acceptance of the recently-erected family 

 Lemoniidae {Knt. Xachr., xxvi., p. 49 ; h'nt. liec, xiii., pp. 167-8 ; 

 Trans. Ent. Soc. Loud., 1901, p. 187), and the consequent rejection 

 of Eupterotidac (with which the genus Lenumia, Hb., had been 

 associated) from the Pahearctic fauna. Dr. Rebel [Ent. Xachr., loc. 

 cit., Feb. 1900) forestalled our English entomologists in this change, 

 and will blame our insular ignorance of his work. No doubt our 

 most advanced students of phylogenetic classification will find a good 

 deal to criticise in matters of detail as regards the contents and 

 boundaries of the various families, apart altogether from the less 

 important question of their sequence. Why, for instance, are the 

 Syntomids maintained as a distinct family from Arctiidae, while, on 

 the other hand, Fam. xxxviii, Cossidae, is allowed to contain such 

 diverse elements as Cossus and Zcnzera without even subfamily dis- 

 tinction ? (In Irh, xi., p. 387, two subfamilies, (JoNsinae and 

 ZcKzcrinac, are recognised, and intimation given that their differences 

 are not unperceived.) But there are few things more difficult than to 

 arrange our material in a series of families of ajipru.i-iiiiatd;/ eijiial 

 raliic, and there is much cause for thankfulness that in the catalogue 

 now before us many of the most absurd combinations are abandoned, 

 and the work is in the hands of an author who is at least thoroughly 

 in sympathy with the modern biological standpomt. 



In dealing with the individual families, and, in some cases, in- 

 dividual genera, our authors have made considerable use of the most 

 recent monographic works, and their results are satisfactory or the 

 reverse largely according to the value of the authorities followed. No 

 better method could, however, be desired for a catalogue ; even a cata- 

 logue of the high position which will be conceded to that of Staudinger 

 and Eebel cannot be expected to undertake first-hand revisional work 

 on any large scale (compare preface, p. ix), although, of course, it 

 was the duty of the authors to check everything so far as possible 

 before accepting it, and evidence is not wanting that this has in 

 nearly all cases been conscientiously done. The amount of literature 

 gone through must have been enormous, and very little of importance 

 published up to the close of the year 1900 seems to have been over- 

 looked. The literature list on pp. xv-xxvi contains 524 entries (some- 

 times with valuable bibliographical details), as against 860 in the 1H71 

 edition, nowithstanding that a good many pre-Linnean works which 

 were previously quoted are now omitted ; nor must it be forgotten that 

 many of the entries are of periodicals which have been running for 

 quarter or half a century (or more), and it is no light work to make 

 oneself conversant with the lepidopterological contents of even one 

 such periodical. Aery few of the monographers have been followed 

 without some reservation ; perhaps Aurivillius, on the Lasinrauijiiilar, 

 is an exception — but in any case he is a recognised specialist on the 

 family. The revisions among the butterflies, such as those of the 

 I Icsperiidac by Elwes and Edwards, of Ercliia by the same authors and 

 Dr. Chapnuui, were of course independently judged by Dr. Staudinger, 

 and in a few details his opinions differ from theirs. The old aversion 

 to the multiplication of genera is still observable ; the new genus 

 Erchunutrpha, Elwes (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1(S99, p. 361) — which, 

 by the way, is a preoccupied name, Erebomorjdta, Wlk., 1860, being a 



