138 THE knt()Molo(tIst's record. 



beyond measure, viz., the sequence of the superfamilies, which are 

 more or less at variance with all his published work, and secondly, his 

 acceptance of genera, based on the unscientific method of taking the 

 firsc species mentioned in a genus as the type, whether or not an 

 intelligent consideration of the genus shows that this species could not 

 have really influenced the author in the characterisation of the genus. 

 The first point is well illustrated by stating that he commences his 

 List with the Papilionids, followed by the Sphingids, Saturniids, 

 Arctiids, Noctuids, Nycteolids, Notodontids, Lymantriids, Lachneids, 

 Bombycids, Platypterygids, Geometrids and Tineoids in order, the 

 latter including the Nolids, Cochlidids, Thyridids, yEgeriids, Pyralids, 

 &c. The second is best illustrated by stating that he appears to accept 

 in the Syntomids, Arctiids, etc., the genera as used by Hampson, whose 

 work in this direction is based entirely on the principle above 

 enunciated. We are utterly at sea, too, as to the principles guiding 

 Dyar in the selection of his families in the superfamily lUniihijcoidea (to 

 us a new superfamily ending) where we get — Si/utomidae, Lithouidae, 

 Aretiidae, Affaristidae, Noctindae, Nycteolidae, Pericopidae, Dioptidae, 

 Notodontidae, Tlit/atiridae, Liparidae, Lasiocampidae, Bomhycidae, 

 Flatypteryifidae, Geometridae and Kpiplemidae. If such a conglomera- 

 tion as this represents the present state of our knowledge, then our 

 raodern methods must be held to deserve all the condemnation that 

 the stick-in-the-mud, alter-no-name-nor-anything-else lepidopterists 

 pass upon them. Still, one suspects that this List is compiled by Dyar 

 the curator, and not by Dyar the biologist, and that the author thinks 

 what we have often stated, viz., that a Catalogue is of use to the 

 extent that it enables one to find what one wants readily, and might 

 often as well be alphabetical, for all the real illustration of biological 

 principles that its arrangement exhibits. As to the materials from 

 which it is compiled it is only when one considers that, at the time the 

 second edition of Staudinger's Catalof/ue was issued, American lepidop- 

 terology was almost a negligeable quantity, and then fairly considers the 

 advance that such a catalogue (considered in the light of the arrange- 

 ment of the genera in the separate families inter ae, as apart from the 

 arrangement of the list as a whole) as this illustrates in the progress 

 of scientific knowledge, literature and modes of work, that one gets a true 

 grip of what Grote, Packard, Scudder, Smith, Fernald, Edwards, Dyar, 

 Hulst, Clemens, Chambers, Busck, and a few others have done for 

 American entomology. Nor must Lord Walsingham's contributions 

 to American entomology be over looked, for, after Stainton, Chambers 

 and Clemens, he gave a strong impetus to the study of the micro-lepi- 

 doptera, which has since been carried on by a small, but exceedingly 

 efficient, band of energetic workers. No fewer than 6022 species are 

 chronicled. We have no doubt that North America possesses almost 

 double this number. 



The monograph of the Sphingids on which the Hon. Walter 

 Rothschild and Dr. Karl Jordan have been at work so long, was 

 published on April 21st. It appears to be a monument of patient 

 labour and crammed with exact and important detail. We hope to be 

 able to notice the work in more detail later. 



EuRATUM. — Page 109, line 19, for " bald " read " bred." — E. E. .James. 



