39 



8. The Lyc.'ENID.'E of the United States, by W. H. Edwards. 



9. Halisidota and alHes, by B. Neumoegen. 

 10. The genus Euch.etes, by Henry Edwards. 



As some groups are so much smaller than others, and as all species 

 will be illustrated (as before stated) in colors, with their transformations 

 as far as known, it will of course be impossible to fix a general price 

 for the numbers, but the assurance is herewith given that no profit will 

 be charged upon the work beyond that sufficient to cover the actual 

 outlay. Further particulars will shortly be issued. 



P ,. f Henry Edwards, Wallack's Theatre, New York. 



^" ( S. Lowell Elliot, 538 East 86th Street, New York. 



TOUCHING THE SO-CALLED " CONTROVERSY" 

 CONCERNING SPECIES. 



By a. G. Butler, F. L. S., F. Z. S., etc. 



In a paper published in Papilio, pp. 1 51-155, Mr. Elwes comes to 

 the front as a supporter of Dr. Hagen; he says, " Mr. Edwards seems 

 to think just as Mr. Butler did when I ventured some notes on the 

 genus Colias three years ago in the Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society, that because a man has not been a lepidopterist, and nothing 

 else all his life, he has no right to speak or to have an opinion on the 

 subject." 



I should be glad to know how Mr. Elwes became gifted with such 

 erratic second-sight as to perceive so distorted, not to say suicidal, a 

 picture of my mind ; as probably one of the last general entomologists 

 obliged, by " circumstances over which I have had no control," to dip 

 more or less deeply into every order of insects, I should surely be the 

 last to hold a view so narrow. When briefly criticizing an aggregation 

 of names of species within arbitrary limits, by a man who certainly had 

 not reared many (probably not one) from the eg^, I commented upon 

 a remark of the author thus : ' ' That it does ' require special training 

 to appreciate' specific differences is a truism which no entomologist 

 who has specially studied any branch of his science will be inclined to 

 dispute; for that very reason it is unwise for any naturalist, when taking 

 up the study of a branch of science comparatively new to him, to plunge 

 at once into the most difficult genus in that branch, and criticize the 

 work of all previous laborers in the same field." Now, in this para- 



