62 THE butti:rflies of nj:w England. 



ill his Zoological Illustrations, lie alters the names of his groups and em- 

 ploys so many new family names — as Satyridae and Erycinidae — that it 

 would seem as if his vieAvs were not fixed with any mathematical rigidity. 

 Stephens, also, accepting the principal that "natural objects cannot be 

 arranged agreeably to their affinities, otherwise than by a series of circles 

 'returning . . . into themselves,' "although "sceptical as to the quinary ar- 

 rangement being universal," proposed in his Catalogue of 1829 four fami- 

 lies of butterflies arranged thus : — 



[1.] Papilionidae. [2.] Nymplialidae. 



[4.] Hesperiidae. 



[3.] Lycaeuidae. 



In his serial list the order is given as I have numbered them. 



Boisduval is the next author to whom we must turn our attention. In 

 his Index methodicus (1829) he divided the "Diurni" into three tribes, 

 Papilionidi, Nymplialidi, and Hesperidi. No further subdivisions were 

 offered excepting genera. The Lycaeninae were all placed in Polyommatus 

 at the end of the first tribe. In the arrangement of the larger groups, then, 

 this scheme has nothing that is natural excepting its termination with the 

 "Hesperidi," as all authors have done ; it places the very highest and very 

 lowest butterflies in juxtaposition, and is founded, though not expressly, 

 on characters drawn from the pupa only. 



In his Species general, this same author gives a historical account of 

 classifications proposed up to his time, which is full of the most extraordinary 

 errors, and which ends with still another arrangement, differing from all 

 preceding in the multiplication of groups called by him families, which are 

 classed as above into three groups founded expressly on the mode of suspen- 

 sion in the pupa. 



Siiccincti (Papillonides, Pierides, Eumeuides, Lycenides, Eryciuldes, Peridromides). 

 Suspensi (Daiialdes, Helicouides, Nymplialides, Brassolides, Morphides, Satyrides, Biblidcs, 



Libythides). 

 Involuti (Hesperides). 



This, it will be seen, is but a development of his former views, expressed 

 in the Index and subsequently in his work on American butterflies with 

 LeConte (1829-34), as well as in his Icones (1832-43) in which the 

 groups Succincti and Susi^ensi or Pendulae are first introduced. It is the 

 order adopted by a very large class of entomologists at the present day, 

 and has the demerit of all classifications established on single characters ; 

 fortunately, within a few years, the sounder opinions of previous writers are 

 beginning to gain supporters, and to be established upon still more substan- 

 tial grounds. 



From 1839-1859. The first step in this direction was taken by West- 

 wood, in his Modern classification of insects (1839), not only with regard 

 to the arrangement of the primary groups, but in opposition to the introduc- 



