162 -'"ly. 



submitted for determination are not unusually found to be in moderate 

 or poor condition, which makes it all the more important to exercise 

 a wholesome caution before pronouncing any decided opinion as to 

 their rarity or novelty. 



It sometimes happens that however guarded may be the language 

 in which an opinion is given, the anxious enquirer is so convinced that 

 his specimen is either new to science or new to England, that he 

 cannot refrain from making it known to his friends or rivals with a 

 proper flourish of trumpets, and he is tempted to quote the authority 

 of any specialist to whom he may have referred it in support of his 

 claim either to describe it as new or to introduce it as British. May 

 I plead in the interests of accuracy and precision that, except perhaps 

 in the rarest and most obvious instances, this should not be done on 

 the evidence of any single British specimen. Our lists are already 

 too densely crowded with synonyms, and what will be the task of the 

 Staudinger or Wocke of the future if he should undertake to com- 

 pile a complete Catalogue of the Lepidoptera, without shirking the 

 task of at least an attempt to identify and include every species or 

 variety that has been honoured with a description and a name ? 



If a rare or new species is found it soon becomes better known, 

 its habitat or life-histoi-y is discovered, and a time arrives when all 

 danger of confusion ma}^ have passed away, and it can be duly dis- 

 tinguished and published ; but in how many cases have newly-described 

 species remained unique specimens on which no subsequent study or 

 investigation has thrown any light. If the types perish, all clue to 

 their possible identity is lost, and the names remain to crowd our lists 

 and to perplex those who read them. 



My only object in this note (justified by bought experience) is to 

 urge additional caution not only on those who may think that they 

 have made a discovery ; but equally on those who, without intending 

 to do so, may, by some expression of opinion, however guarded, tend 

 to encourage that belief in cases where further evidence at least 

 should be required to confirm it. 



Many there be who love to steer 



Where guarded caution slowly led ; 

 And some there are, who scorning fear, 



Incautiously rush on ahead. 

 The man who takes his cheese for chalk 



May bite a stone and call it bread : 

 But who so bold as dares to walk 



Where such an angel fears to tread. 

 June, 1895. 



