ADYERTISE3IENT. 



SixCE the jniblication of Boisduval and LeConte's Lepidopteres de rAmerique 

 Septentrionale, I808, in which the greater number of Butterflies of the United 

 States were described and figured, mostly from the pLites of Abbot, there have been 

 added to our fauna, and to our knowledge, partly from the enlargement of the 

 States and partly from the observations of later naturalists, almost or quite as jnany 

 as were then known. California and the Pacific slope and the Rocky Mountains 

 have proved exceedingly rich in species. The same is true of Texas and of the 

 northern parts of the continent. And, wherever a lepidopterist has carefully 

 collected in the old States, and in localities supposed to have been thoroughly 

 worked, lunv species, many of them consjiicuous for size and beauty, have been 

 discovered. 



Many Californiau species Avere described by Dr. Boisduval, in the Ann. Soc. 

 Ent. de France, none of which have been figured, except two or three in Double- 

 day's Genera. Ivirby described and figured a few of the Northern species in his 

 Fauna Boreali Amer. in 1837, and many descriptions, with occasionally a plate, 

 are scattered through scientific journals and Proceedings of Societies. 



Xearly all the early descriptions are defective in certainty, being too brief, or 

 too carelessly written, to enable us to identify the species, often applying to two or 

 more as well as one, and often being utterly irrecognisable. Having, from my first 

 study of this beautiful family, felt the want of illustrations, I long ago proposed to 

 myself to publish a complete work on the Butterflies of Xorth America, when I 

 should have amassed sufficient material and could command the leisure necessary 

 to such an end. I have the material, but I have not the wished for leisure, and I 

 am compelled at jH'esent to forego the more ambitious attempt. But to carry out, 

 even to a moderate degree, my cherished desire, as well as to enable our lepidopte- 

 rists to keep up somewhat with the advance of the study, I propose now to publish 

 a sufficient number of new, or hitherto unfigured or disputed, species, to make at 

 least a moderate volume, leaving it for the future to decide Avhether I will continue 

 hevond that limit. One number, therefore, containing at least five plates, will be 



