70 THE BUTTERFLIP:S of new ENGLAND. 



This review shows that there has been very great diversity of view 

 anion o- naturalists, first regarding the number of primary groups into 

 which butterflies should be divided, and, second, with regard to their se- 

 quence. In only a single instance has there been entire unanimity, and 

 that is in the separation of the Hesperidae, as a distinct group of greater or 

 less value, and its low position next the moths ; and, with the exception of 

 one or two instances Avhere the authors have been led away by the striking 

 peculiarities of the caterpillar, no one has ventured to place the Lycaeni- 

 dae at the head. If, as in this work, we consider tlie butterflies to be 

 primarily divisible into four great families, the contention has generally 

 lain between the superiority of the Nymphalidae and of the Papilionidae. 

 Notwithstanding that the first keen investigator of the structure of butter- 

 flies, Reaumur, more than a century and a half ago, showed how widely 

 the structure of the front legs of the Nymphalidae differs from that of those 

 of other butterflies, Linne, the first great systematist, paid not the slightest 

 attention to the value of distinctions, of Avhose character he must have been 

 aware and which at first he used, but based his initiatory groupings of but- 

 terflies largely on mere superficial resemblances drawn from the form and 

 ordinary attitude of the wings ; and although in his earliest works he placed 

 the Nymphalidae at the head, when his Systema naturae reached its climax, 

 he began his system of butterflies with the Papilionidae. In this he was 

 followed implicitly, as might be expected, by his disciple Fabricius, and 

 the influence of these two old systematists upon even the present genera- 

 tion of naturalists is something surprising. For, as we have shown, 

 Greoffi'oy, more than a century ago, made use of the characters pointed out 

 by Reaumur, in which the Nymphalidae differ widely from the Papilionidae 

 and Hesperidae, and placed the Nymphalidae in their proper position at the 

 widest remove from the Hesperidae. Not only this, but he was followed 

 by all the naturalists of that day, — Borkhausen, Herbst, Cuvier and, in his 

 earlier works, Latreille — in this elevation of the Nymphalidae to the high- 

 est rank ; with the sole exception, it should be said, of Denis and ScliiflTer- 

 muller and their follower Schrank, who, relying exclusively on characters 

 drawn from the caterpillars, and noting the distinctive characters of those 

 of the Lycaenidae, placed this latter group the highest. But even these 

 authors, who, as Ave have said, placed their whole reliance on the early 

 stages, brought the Papilionidae in immediate juxtaposition to the Hesperi- 

 dae. In England, where the Linnean traditions held sway longest, the 

 Papilionidae Avere given the highest rank even as late as 1815, in Leach's 

 first work, and these views were reinforced by the influence of the French 

 naturalists even down to Westwood and Doubleday. Oilr review shows 

 that within the last sixty years the principal supporters of high rank for the 

 Papili(jnidae were, besides those already stated, Lederer, Gerstaecker, 

 Staudinger, Claus and Schatz, not to mention Lucas, Trimen (in his earlier 



