164 the entomologist's record. 



polychloros, V. urticae, Argynnis lathonia (near coast), Thecla w-album, T. rubi, 

 Polyommatus phlaeas, Lycaena icarus, Hesperia thaumas, and H. sylvanus. 



Lycaena acis. — Kough pastures and railway-banks. 



L. argiades. — On heaths, may readily be passed over as L. aegon. 



and much more to this effect. Now suppose one grants that " long, 

 long ago," the writer ever did take Polyommatus dispar in " fens and 

 marshy places," and that he remembered when Argynnis lathonia 

 and Pieris daplidice were "generally distributed throughout lanes, 

 meadows, clover fields, etc., near the coast," and when Vanessa 

 antiopa was found in similar places not confined to the coast, 

 when Thecla w-album was found in meadows and clover fields, 

 and T. rubi in similar places, does one really think that the veriest 

 beginner at Marlborough, Winchester, or any County School in 

 the country, would hunt " marshy places " now-a-days for " Polyom- 

 omatus dispar," or expect to find P. daplidice and Argnnis lathonia 

 generally distributed " near the coast," " throughout lanes, meadows, 

 clover fields," and soon? Are such statements as these fair to the 

 beginners, who want facts applicable to 1907, and not those that are 

 assumed to have been, but most certainly were not, applicable to 1857? 



Another item is interesting. It is the advice to the entomologist 

 under the heading " Entomological Books " and reads — 



Of these, so many might be named, that I must be content to mention one or 

 two only which will aid the beginner, and then must leave any further selection to 

 him as his experience may dictate. Stainton's Manual of British Butter/ties and 

 Moths, although written so many years ago, has not been superseded, but it is a 



matter of regret that it has not been brought up-to-date The Insect 



Hunters, by Edward Newman, which, in simple and graceful language, treats of 

 the four stages of insect life, of Lepidoptera, and all Orders, and of classification. 

 It is written in verse, and is addressed to a child, but contains, nevertheless, such 

 sound information as can scarcely be -found elsewhere. But, beyond all comparison, 

 the best works are Newman's Illustrated Natural History of British Moths and 

 Illustrated Natural History of British Butterflies. They contain, with a few 

 exceptions, all the recently discovered insects .... the descriptions of the 

 larvae are drawn up with a care and minuteness almost too elaborate, etc. 



What advice!! Stainton's Manual, out of print, exactly half-a- 

 century old, is a mere catalogue of the butterflies and moths that were 

 then known, and without a word of natural history from one cover to 

 the other. Newman's Insect Hunters a little older, perhaps, and in verse ! ! ! 

 Newman's Natural History of British Butterflies, nearly 40 years old, 

 where Argynnis adippe hybernates as a larva, Polyommatus astrarche 

 and P. icarus as eggs, Rumicia phlaeas as a pupa, (Udias edusa and C. 

 hyale as imagines, and the pupa of Enodia hyperanthus hangs by its 

 tail", and, finally, the British Moths, a year or two younger, which lay 

 no eggs, and have no pupae, whose natural history is conspicuous by 

 its absence, and whose larvae are "described with a care and minuteness 

 almost too elaborate," and yet of not one of which is there an account, 



* At the end of the paper on " The hybernating stages of British Butterflies," 

 published in the Ent. Rec, viii., pp. 97-102, we read : " Such a paper as this 

 summarises the advance that has been made in one direction during the last twenty- 

 five years, and shows us how completely out-of-date Newman's British Butterflies 

 is, and how much beginners, who use it as their first text-book, have to unlearn 

 even on such a subject as this, and when we consider that every page of Newman's 

 book went through the hands of Mr. H. Doubleday, who represented, at that time, 

 the highest point of British lepidopterology, we can pride ourselves that the labour of 

 the last quarter of a century has chronicled a distinct advance in the facts that have 

 accumulated about our British butterflies." What was true in 1896 is infinitely 

 more true in 1907. 



