

PREFACE. 



In the present Volume will be found much original matter on the early stages 

 of the species treated of, and in consequence of this the labor of preparing and 

 coloring the Plates has been very much greater than it was in the first Volume. 

 Hence the dela}' in the issue of the several Parts. I have been seconded to the 

 utmost by Mrs. Mary Peart, who has not only drawn the early stages on the 

 stone, but previously on paper, making in each case colored figures ; and in 

 order to do this has had to aid in rearing the larvoB, and to take a vast amount 

 of trouble upon herself. Of the one hundred and one Plates in the two Volumes, 

 ninety-eight have been done by Mrs. Peart, with a fidelity to nature that cannot 

 be surpassed ; and of the total number one hundred have been colored by Mrs. 

 Lydia Bowen and her sister, Mrs. Leslie, to whom I am under great obligations 

 for the interest they have constantly taken in all that concerned their depart- 

 ment. Their skill and patient care every Plate bears witness to. 



1 have received valuable aid in obtaining eggs or larviB from many correspon- 

 dents, whose names will be found mentioned. 



In the Advertisement to the first Volume, 1868, regret was expressed that 

 in so few instances anything could be said of the larvae : " Even among our old 

 and common species, the larva? are but little more known than in the daj's of 

 Abbot, seventy years ago." All that is changed, and to-day it can be said that 

 the preparatory stages of North American butterflies as a whole are better known 

 than are those of Europe ; and so many zealous workers are now busy in the 

 field that another period of sixteen years may leave comparatively little to be 

 done in these investigations. 



I hope, after an interval of a few months, to proceed with a third Volume, for 



whicli I have in hand abundant materials. 



WILLIAM H. EDWARDS. 

 COALBURGH, W. Va., 1 November, 1884. 



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