66 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NP:W ENGLAND. 



Euiytcliiui, Xymplialina, Libytheina, Erycinina, Lycaenina, Picridina, 

 Eqiiitina, and Hesperidina. Excepting in the intercliange of position of 

 the Picridina and Equitina, the order is that of Heincniann. 



Kanibur, in a too little known work on the Lepidoptera of Andalnsia 

 (l<S(>(i), dropping the Boisduvalian system he had employed in l^ot) in 

 his incompleted work on the same fauna, divided the butterflies into two 

 tribes, Papilioniens and Hesperiens, as he previously had done into Pla- 

 typteres and Micropteres, and the former into eight families arranged in the 

 following order : Nymphalides, .ipaturides, Satyridcs, Libythcidcs, Ery- 

 cinides, Lycenides, Pierides and Papilionides. Whether he was acquainted 

 or not with the reform Bates had suggested does not appear, but if not, 

 the similarity and independence of his scheme show the hand of a master. 

 In lS()i», in Butler's Catalogue of the Fabrician butterflies, published 

 by the British Museum, we find the first attempt to follow throughout the 

 whole group the leading of Bates, it being adopted with but trifling varia- 

 tions : and ever since the English have been foremost in returning to what 

 was practically the early continental method, from A\'hich the French ento- 

 mologists had so lono- led the world astray. 



In 1871, ai)peared the well known Catalogue of European butterflies by 

 Staudinger, — a AAork which has become a necessity to every student of 

 European Lepidoptera, but has also been a great block to the proper 

 appreciation of the relative affinities of the larger groups ; the obvious 

 advantages of following an otherwise excellent catalogue prevents the 

 acceptance of views, which, if held, require one to follow in his cabinets and 

 writings a diflferent order from that adopted in the catalogue. In this work, 

 followed in the main by ^Nloschler in his arrangement of European butter- 

 flies (Abhandl. naturf. Ges. Gorlitz, 1879) and by Frey in his Lepi- 

 doptera of Switzerland (1880), the butterflies are divided into families with 

 tlie following order : Papilionidae, Pieridae, Lycacnidae, Erycinidae, Liby- 

 theidae, Apaturidae, Nymphalidae, Danaidae, Hesperidae. AVorse confu- 

 sion of proi)er sequences could scarcely have been found, if it were not 

 that there are undoubted tolerably near aflfinities between each of these 

 " fiunilies" and those on either side of it, excepting between the Danaidae 

 and Hesperidae, which have exceedingly little in common not shared by all 

 butterflies ; and the defender of any near relationship would hardly venture 

 to make himself heard. If, with the exception of the Hesperidae, the 

 order were exactly reversed, it would be far nearer the truth. 



As an oflfset to this, and an excellent one, there appeared in the same 

 year a catalogue of the Lepidoptera of the whole world, the vade mecura 

 of lci)idoptcrists. In this work Kirby follows in the main Bates's divisions 

 but witli a rather more numerous array of subfamilies : — 



