Books about North American Butterflies 



trated by fifteen colored plates, entitled " Lepidoptera— Rhopalo- 

 ceres and Heteroceres— Indigenous and Exotic," which came out 

 from 1872 to 1879, and contains recognizable figures of many 

 North American species. 



In 1 89 1 there appeared in Boston, from the pen of C. J, May- 

 nard, a work entitled " A Manual of North American Butterflies.' 

 This is illustrated by ten very poorly executed plates and a num- 

 ber of equally poorly executed cuts in the text. The work is 

 unfortunately characterized by a number of serious defects which 

 make its use difficult and unsatisfactory for the correct determina- 

 tion of species and their classification. 



In 1893 Dr. Scudder published two books, both of them use- 

 ful, though brief, one of them entitled " The Life of a Butterfly," 

 the other, " A Brief Guide to the Commoner Butterflies of the 

 Northern United States and Canada." Both of these books were 

 published in New York by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., and con- 

 tain valuable information in relation to the subject, being to a 

 certain extent an advance upon another work published in 1881 

 by the same author and firm, entitled " Butterflies." 



Periodical Liferature.—The reader must not suppose that the 

 only literature relating to the subject that we are considering is to 

 be found in the volumes that have been mentioned. The original 

 descriptions and the life-histories of a large number of the species 

 of the butterflies of North America have originally appeared in the 

 pages of scientific periodicals and in the journals and proceedings 

 of different learned societies. Among the more important pub- 

 lications which are rich in information in regard to our theme 

 may be mentioned the publications relating to entomology issued 

 by the United States National Museum, the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and by the various American commonwealths, 

 chief among the latter being Riley's "Missouri Reports." Ex- 

 ceedingly valuable are many of the papers contained in the 

 " Transactions of the American Entomological Society," " Psyche," 

 the "Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society" (1872- 

 85), "Papilio" (1881-84), " Entomologica Americana" (1885-90), 

 the "Journal of the New York Entomological Society," the 

 "Canadian Entomologist," and "Entomological News." All of 

 these journals are mines of original information, and the student 

 who proposes to master the subject thoroughly will do well to 

 obtain, if possible, complete sets of these periodicals, as well as 



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