260 [April, 



we adopted the plan of making all the descriptions in one regular form, — " begin- 

 ning with the head, ending with the abdomen, and putting down all we saw," — 

 instead of novoi' beginning, continuing, or ending any descriptions in the same 

 manner (or putting down either what we did not — or only jsort of what we did — 

 see) ; for we had proved that this latter way increases indefinitely the labour of 

 liim who would compare the descriptions of two or more genera or species. Better 

 than any mere opinion whether this or that be the superior plan, is the fact, — 

 which may be as consolatory to tho President as it is pleasing to us, — that our 

 method has already proved amply sufficient for several persons easily to determine* 

 then' species : and this was the end we had in view when writing the book. 



There is another slight error, in saying that we have followed Fieber in the 

 creation of groups of species which we "call Families ;" since Fieber has no such 

 groups as ours in his work : and it is doing us too much honom- to credit us with 

 the application of the name " Family" to such groups ; for the same principle had 

 been pi-eviously adopted by Wollaston in his "Insecta Maderensia," by Dallas in his 

 " List of Hemiptera," by Waterhouse in his " Catalogue of British Coleoptera," by 

 Stainton in his " British Butterfies and Moths", — and, indeed, by most Continental 

 writers. 



We plead guilty to an omission of the words "nee. Lin.," on page 83, which 

 makes it appear that we have supplanted an old by a more recent name ; but the 

 remark that " some names are exchanged for others of later date, even of our own 

 creation," arises, we take it, from a misconception of the fact (which we have not 

 thought it requisite to explain in loco) that such names had already been sup- 

 pressed by other authors on account of double ern,ploie. 



The President thinks the climax of our faults is reached in the omission of 

 Bynonymes from the Index. Of course he has a perfect right to his opinion ; we 

 humbly thought that, as the majority of the species are recognised throughout 

 Europe by tho names we have retained, it was not necessary to put the synonymes 

 in our book twice. 



As the President has forgotten to send us a copy of his Address, we pen these 

 remai'ks from recollection of a casual reading thereof; but we believe we have 

 omitted none of the points he has noticed. Sensible as we are that our work of 

 endeavour to aid British entomologists still coatains some faults and misprints, 

 — which the President has not noticed, although of course known to one so well 

 acquainted with the subject as he must be, — we feel proportionately gi-ateful for the 

 forbearance shown to us ; and in return we hope that, when the works of the 

 President himself are put into the critical crucible, they will be treated with the 

 same fairness and consideration he has shown to ours. 



JoH N W. Douglas, 7, Kingswood Place. 

 John Scott, 13, Torrington Villas, Lee, 



Notodonta dromedarius douhle-hrooded ? — I found a fine larva of this species on 

 tho 8tli July, 1865, in Birmingham, under a birch tree. It bm-ied the same 

 morning, only just enabling mo to see tho accuracy of the short description in the 

 Manual, which suited my individual caterpillar exactly. A fine male moth appeared 

 from it on the 8th of August, 1865 ; the duration of the pupa condition being only 

 thirty-one days. The jar was out of doors in a cool place. This species of Notodonta 



