Viii PREFACE. 



employed ; regarding these points, on reflection, as more suitable to a 

 monographic treatment of the special groups themselves, I have generally- 

 omitted them to make room for what seemed more fitting and more 

 commonly neglected. So too it had been my purpose to reinforce the 

 descriptions of the male abdominal appendages (prepared while in Europe) 

 by a study of these parts during life ; but the purpose had finally to be 

 abandoned in all but a very few instances. But, as it stands, it is, I 

 believe, the most exhaustive faunistic work on any insects of any part of 

 the world. Whether its completeness has interfered with its exactitude, 

 or will prevent a proper comprehension of relations ; whether the work 

 is of too encyclopedic a nature, or is warranted in the present state of 

 science, time only will show. If I have made my descriptions fuller than 

 usual, it is because I do not think our aim should be simply to inquire in 

 what particulars a creature differs from its fellows, but rather to ascer- 

 tain all we can about each sort of animal, its most intimate structure 

 and clothing, to serve as the basis of the most secure generalizations. 

 Such descriptions may seem unnecessary to those whose only aim is the 

 discrimination of species ; they will, I hope, prove of some value to those 

 who seek a knowledge of species. I have in all endeavored to look to the 

 future rather than to the past ; to keep in their just proportions structure, 

 growth, life history, environment, distribution, and taxonomy, that neither 

 should say to its neighbor, " I have no need of thee." 



Special emphasis has been laid on the proper subordination of char- 

 acters, a matter grievously neglected by the ordinary student of butterflies, 

 who, more than any other virtuoso, it seems to me, shows the lack of that 

 training which fits men to be zoologists rather than entomologists, — 

 entomologists rather than lepidopterists. Particular attention and just 

 criticism is therefore invited to the use that has been made of the early 

 stages of the insect, — egg, caterpillar at birth and at maturity, and chrys- 

 alis, — in the definition of the various categories of structure among 

 butterflies, whether families, subfamilies, tribes, or genera. This is a 

 feature never before attempted on any scale at all commensurate with that 

 found here ; and though the characteristics have very largely been drawn 

 from a limited fauna, such survey as has been made of the fields beyond 

 warrants the belief that these definitions will not require correction except 

 in minor details or to a slight degree. That a first attempt of this sort will 

 prove to some extent faulty goes without saying. That the old warning 

 cry of " insufficient knowledge " should longer stay endeavor, ought to be 

 a reproach to the naturalist , for herein lies the most hopeful field of pro- 

 gress, and it is to the credit of American naturalists that with them, more 

 than anywhere in the world, attention is paid to the early stages and life 

 histories of insects. To give precision, harmony, and direction to such 

 investigations has been one aim of this work. 



There can, indeed, be no doubt that the principal weakness in those 

 structures which naturalists have built and called the classification of but- 



