nli. PREFACE. 



every recent author. I do not, however, intend to enter into an 

 argument here upon the most correct order in which to place them ; 

 it will be sufficient for me to say that in following the system that 

 has been familiar to me from childhood I have carefully considered 

 the reasons advanced by various authors in support of the newer 

 arrangement, and my mind has failed to be convinced of a sufficient 

 cause to justify the change. 



With the genera I have interfered very little ; I have in many 

 instances preferred to retain names which, although not claiming 

 precedence by priority of date, have become so familiar by long use 

 as to make it inexpedient in my opinion to discard them. 



Especially with regard to the Hespeuid.^e is the arrangement 

 of the genera provisional. I have been unable to refer to the recent 

 work of Mabille,* Speyer,t and PlotzJ in the diagnosing of this 

 family. 



I declare myself an uncompromising opponent of the species 

 makers, and there are many names still in my list that I felt at the 

 time strongly tempted to sink as synonyms, and some more that I 

 feel convinced will have to be struck out in the future and treated 

 as varietal forms only. A number of species — more esj)ecially 

 amongst the Hespeeid.t^ — to descriptions of which I have been unable 

 to refer, will doubtless prove to be ones that I have since described, 

 so that the total number of species will probably bear considerable 

 reduction. 



I cannot avoid here remarking that I think the practice of- 

 hastily describing as a new species an insect that the author has 

 seen but a single example of, possessing no local knowledge of the 

 fauna from whence it is derived, is much to be deprecated, as 

 calculated to simply cumber the literature and render the 

 identification of the species troublesome and complicated, conse- 

 quently retarding rather than advancing the interests of science. 

 But still worse is it when persons entirely ignorant of the literature 

 of the subject, from a mere desire to have their names appear in 

 type, recklessly publish descriptions of alleged new species, regardless 

 of the work of a century, without the possibility of knowing whether 

 the specimen is already described or not ; of such it is to be deplored 

 we are unhappily not free. 



In giving the localities of the various species in my catalogue, 

 it will be observed that I refer in almost every instance to the 



* Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1877. t Stett. Ent. Zeit. 1878. 



; Stett. Ent. Zeit. 1879. 



