196 THE ENTOMOLOGISTS RKCORD. 



interesting com25avative remarks will become. I think that one can 

 safely say most races have already been described and named in all the 

 zones, except, perhaps, the Balkanic one. What is now required is 

 that in each zone someone should collect the notes, published chiefly by 

 Oberthiir, Friihstorfer, Seitz, and myself in several books and journals, 

 and give one a synthetic account of them by comparing them, filling 

 gaps, and establishing roughly the distribution of the various races, as 

 far as it can be made out now. The List to follow has been drawn out 

 by Querci and myself with this object in view. 



This being the first attempt of its kind, we were confronted 

 with special difficulties, on account of the utter ignorance Ave were 

 in, ten years ago, when we started work, as to the number of 

 yearly generations and of their distinctive features in the south 

 of Europe, even of the commonest and most widespread species. 

 As a considerable number vary very little even in the diffarent 

 zones, and I have already pointed nut these features in some of 

 my papers, I should hope a good deal of work will be saved to 

 others. Another tedious task we have had to accomplish, has been that 

 of going over most of the literature of the past, to make out how the 

 old names were to be applied to the generations and races newly sepa- 

 rated from each other. This too, I venture to think, is a considerable 

 amount of labour not to be gone back upon. The new races, which 

 will be discovered locally, should henceforth be described by a com- 

 parison with those, already known, which stand nearest to them. I 

 have shown in many instances that the variations of most species 

 consist simply in grades along one main line, sometimes with a few 

 minor collateral branches. New races will, in consequence, need no 

 lengthy descriptions. It will often simply be a case of stating where 

 the}' fall in connection with the others. As I have already stated, I 

 believe in Western Europe the number of races to be discovered is 

 small as compared with those already described. They will be found 

 chiefly in the limited number of species which vary a great deal, both 

 individually and geographically. In these cases the only way of 

 establishing the new races well is to compare them with series of 

 specimens from the locality, whence their nearest allies were described. 

 I have often discovered, in my own experience, that descriptions and one 

 or two figures are hopeless in particular cases of this sort, and that 

 they lead one, too often, wrong. What is wanted is collaboration 

 amongst entomologists, and a race suspected to be new should be sent 

 for comparison with the " typical " series of those it resembles most, 

 or specimens procured from the locality of the latter. This I have 

 usually found to be quite feasible, and I can say, with great satisfac- 

 tion, that the goodwill of entomologists to help each other is remark- 

 able. As I am dealing with this argument, I must mention that, 

 according to my view, one should abstain from describing individual 

 forms singly, because these descriptions get lost in the mass of litera- 

 ture, and fancy names given to them are getting overwhelming in num- 

 ber. The only way of developing this subject in a practical form, and 

 of obtaining interesting results and observations from it, is to set to 

 work systematically on large series of specimens of the entire species, 

 or even of the genas, including those races which produce the most 

 extreme extent of pattern, and those which produce its extreme reduc- 

 tion. As all forms, whether they are produced by nornaal variation 



