212 THE entomologist's kecord. 



Each stage gives certain evolutionary characters, and it is only by a 

 combination of all these characters that any useful scheme can 

 possibly be formulated. Hence we require a number of specialists, 

 each at a particular branch of work, to give us their results as com- 

 pletely as may be. The correlation of all these various systems will 

 give us our ideal system of classification. Our author must know this, 

 yet he writes with all the self-assumption possible : — " The structural 

 characters are in every instance drawn up from my own observations." 

 We fail to find the use of what we call " structural characters." Our 

 author further states that " the system of classification, though now 

 fully published for the first time, is not based on the British species only, 

 but is the outcome of my study of the Lepidoptera of the whole 

 world." This accentuates the position. Our author, in attempting 

 too much, has simply taken the most superficial characters : — " Eyes — 

 glabrous or hairy," " antennie— pectinate, bi-pectinate or simple," 

 "neuration" — in which the numbers used are often not always 

 analogous in allied species, and so on. 



Progress is usually made by slow steps, but when progress is 

 continuous it makes, in the course of a half century, a considerable 

 total. Such has been our position in the classification of the Lepidoptera. 

 Now, it must be evident that when a man takes an enormous leap 

 backward, into a past which, to the present race of scientific men, is 

 practically unknown, such retrogression may appear to the uninitiated 

 a progressive movement, being practically a leap into the dark, and 

 when this retrogression is accompanied with a fair mixture of more 

 recent detail, one is simply still more muddled. This is our author's 

 position. He has receded to the time antecedent to Stephens, for his 

 genera. His generic characters are unequalled, except by those used 

 by certain lepidopterists, who name a new genus without a description 

 at all, thus : — " Genus— .c Type — //. The genera are often reduced to 

 absurdity, and are often mere transpositions of the same words. His 

 " Phylogenetic tables," without explanations, will prove amusing items 

 of scientific jugglery to many of us, and nothing can be more simple, 

 from a num who poses as having produced a scientific book, than the 

 cool way he summarises descriptions of larvae made from works with- 

 out any references thereto, and then writes: — "Larval descriptions 

 require to be made from living specimens, and it would have been 

 impossible to hope to see most of the species within a limited time ; I 

 have therefore drawn up these to the best of my judgment from a 

 comparison of the most trustworthy published descriptions, though 

 they are often amaeingly contradictory," which, put into plain English, 

 reads : — Although I have not seen, nor had time to see, the various 

 larvse described, I have, where authors disagree in their descriptions, 

 determined which, in my judgment, is correct, and which is incorrect. 



One is astounded throughout at the certainty with which our 

 author regards his conclusions. It matters nothing that they are 

 opposed by all the close research of Comstock, Chapman, Dyar, 

 Packard, and all other entomologists, our author, who defines genera 

 on a " thoracic crest more or less developed," who will admit moths 

 with ciliated, partially ciliated and simple antennae into the same 

 genus, is certain of everything, and tells us with all the pedagogic 

 authority possible that " there would be considerable justification 

 for uniting the Lijcai'nitlae with the I'ieridar." To which we can 

 only reply in our ignorance — Indeed ! 



We append one of the little Phylogenetic tables in which our author 



