IV 



I have, however, found it, expedient to reproduce his description; hewing hitherto 

 been published in Dutch only they are inaccessible to many. 



As I have already stated in my former introductions, I am an uncompromising 

 opponent of what an English author has recently termed " the modern fashion 

 of excessive splitting". My collaborator Fruhstorfer, who has been strongly 

 attacked by the subspecies mania, has produced a crowd of subspecific names 

 in the Lycaenidae and owing to the importance of his distinctions in this respect 

 I have thought it expedient invariably to record these names. But in spite of this 

 I fail to see their utility. Would it not suffice to record these small differences? 

 Not infrequently the subspecific name alone is indicated without mention of the 

 specific name and thus confusion arises. Moreover not a few of these subspecies 

 are certainly untenable, being in fact based simply on individual differences, 

 which, owing to insufficient material or the influence of — at least with regard 

 to Java insects — inaccurate ideas concerning so-called seasonal variation, have 

 erroneously been looked upon as fixed races. 



In general the Lycaenidae are characterized by a diminutive body. A 

 single species, Lipuyra Brassolis, Westw., towers like a solitary giant above 

 its kinsmen, but while a few Arhopala, although smaller than that species, 

 attain a moderate size, all the other members of this group are small, a few 

 even very small. The solitary large species, just referred to, produces with 

 regard to this group exactly the same impression as produced bij Hestias in 

 respect of Danaidae, by Ornithoptera as compared with Papilios and even by 

 Saturnias amongst Heterocera. The reason of this will be understood by a 

 perusal of my study of the so-called tails — to be discussed presently when 

 dealing with the Papilionidae — in my article " Ueber die sogenannten Schwdnze 

 der Lepidoptereti" published in the Deutsclie Entomologischc Zeiischrift. Iris, 1903, 

 coupled with that of the evolution of the caterpillar. These large forms are 

 simply remnants of an older condition in which the butterflies of these groups 

 were in general much larger, which condition in by far the larger majority of 

 species has, owing to an evolutionary process of diminution, receded to smaller 

 dimensions. But this process has, in accordance with the fixed rule of all 

 animal evolution, operated to an extremely unequal extent in the different 

 species and even individuals, and has in this manner enabled a few species to 

 retain their original size to this day, while in the case of the changed forms 

 frequently sundry relics of their former size of wings have likewise been 

 preserved in the shape of the so- called tails and various similar appendages. 



Now, seeing that the so-called tails are somewhat numerous in Lycaenidae 

 and occur in various stages of development, it is very probable that the small 

 size of body in this group is due to the same process of diminution, Liphyra 



