654 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



was executed for liim " with the intention of forming two additional vol- 

 umes to those edited by Dr. Smith, but the design is now abandoned." 



Each set of drawings furnished by Abbot seems to have been accom- 

 panied by more or less manuscript, in which the life history of the insect 

 is given in brief form, with the food plant of the caterpillar and the times 

 of tlie change of the caterpillars to chrysalids, and of chrysalids to butter- 

 flies, which shows that Abbot must^have been an exceptionally industrious 

 rearer of insects. Indeed the transformations of not a few of our butter- 

 flies are even now known only through the observations and illustrations 

 of Abbot. Dr. Boisduval was good enough to present me with three 

 series of manuscript notes entitled "Notes to the Drawings of Insects," 

 all written in Abbot's own hand, and comprising twenty-seven foolscap 

 pages, rather closely written, and describing the changes of two hundred 

 and one species ; of these thirty-eight are butterflies. These, unfortunately, 

 are referred to only by number and by an English name, which Abbot 

 himself applied, apparently, to every insect of which he furnished drawings, 

 such as the " reed butterfly," the "ringed butterfly," the " lesser dingy 

 skipper," etc., though he occasionally makes use of such names as the 

 " autumnal ajax," " Papilio antiopa," etc., showing his familiarity to a 

 certain extent with Linnean names. As the names and drawings are in 

 some instances kept together, the manuscript of those in which they are 

 not connected is still of use. It appears that nearly all the Georgian 

 butterflies were observed and painted by Abbot, and that of about sixty 

 species which he raised he distributed illustrations and notes of the early 

 stages to some of his correspondents. 



As is well known by all aurelians, one considerable collection of Abbot's 

 drawings was published by Sir James Edward Smith in two sumptuous 

 folio volumes, but these comprise, as far as the butterflies are concerned, 

 only twenty-four species. This work made an epoch in the history of 

 entomology in this country. Besides this Abbot published nothing. The 

 article credited to him in Ilagen's Bibliography was by a Rev. Mr. Abbot, 

 who wrote from England in November, 1798, when Abbot was in this 

 country. 



A second work which marked an important advance in our knowledge 

 of the transformations of the butterflies of Noi'th America was the unfin- 

 ished volume by Boisduval and Le Conte, entitled Histoire generale et 

 iconographie des Lepidopteres etdes chenilles de I'Amerique septentrionale, 

 published in Paris more than half a century ago. Twenty-six parts ap- 

 peared between 1829 and 1834, interrupted after the issue of the eighth 

 part (pp. 1-80 ; pi. 1-24) by the revolution of 1830, and resumed in 

 1833. How large a part was due directly to the labors of Major Le Conte 

 himself, whose family has borne a conspicuous part in the scientific history 



