171 



all. It is not to be supposed that a cyanide bottle would be so full of 

 liquid as to give an insect a bath. Mr. Grote sent me some years ago 

 an example of Philodice colored crimson by cyanide, and which he had 

 recently described in the Buffalo Bulletin as C. Maria. This was when 

 the poison was beginning to be used in bottles and he did not suspect 

 the artificial coloration. I had a colored figure made of that example 

 before I returned it. The crimson is unequal over the two hind wings, 

 deep on each in spots, but not in same way or to same extent, and 

 streaks and patches of crimson are mixed with yellow, no pair of wings 

 alike. That is the way cyanide stains a yellow Colias, as I have 

 since observed in several instances. I am sorry to spoil a good story, 

 nevertheless ! 



The Multiplic.vtion of Synonyms. — The past twenty-five years has been 

 a period of unremitting labor on t-e part of the Entomologists of America. 

 Until the beginning of that period they had been content to let their European 

 brethren describe new species and do what little monographing work was done 

 at that time. Since Uien, especially in Lepidopteka, the great bulk of the new 

 species described as from America, north of Mexico, have been described by 

 American writers. This change has not been due to the fact that ihe European 

 students were any less an.xious to describe the new material, but simply to the 

 fact that increased enthusiasm on the part of the Americans, combined with 

 naturally better facilities for obtaining American specimens has led the latter to 

 assume to themselves the right to give names to everything found in their ter- 

 ritory, presumably new. I say " presumably new," for in very many cases, as 

 all are too well aware, the newness has rested entirely on a presumption, un- 

 warranted by the facts. W^ithout mentioning any specific cases I may venture 

 the remark that any student with but a few months' experience will readily call 

 to mind many cases where nothing but the presumption that a species was un- 

 described has been the excuse for further burdening our already over-taxed 

 synonymical lists. This is especially true of species collected along our southern 

 confines. With .sucii careful and alert students as Godman and Salvin, Oberthiir, 

 Staudinger, Mabille, Butler, and many others, always on the lookout for new 

 material, it is an exceedingly difficult matter at the present time to determine, 

 in the Diurnal Lepidoptera, what has been described. As it may be of interest 

 to students of the Rhopalocera to know the methods used by me for the deter- 

 mination of specimens of this sub-order, constantl}^ coming into my own collec- 

 tion, or those of the Am. Ent. Soc, or The Phil. Acad, of Nat. Sci., I will briefly 

 describe them : 



1st. — Kirby's Catalogue of described Butterflies, with supplement to May, 

 1877, is bound interleaved. On these interleaved pages all species described, 

 from time to time in the publications of the world, are entered as fast as such 

 publications come to my knowledge. This work is facilitated by the " Zoological 

 Record ;" and is made possible l)y the very c.:>mplete libraries o'i t'.:e .Society 

 and Academy, into which nearly all Entomological works of permanent value 

 find their way in time. Opposite these insertions, which now number over 900, 

 and opposite all species previously described, references thereto, published since 

 1877, are carefully entered. The entries referring to North and Central America 

 alone number considerably over two thousand. 



2nd. — A carefully prepared list of all figures, colored or uncolore 1, in these 

 two libraries, is arranged under generic heads. 



3rd. — Tabular statements of many groups, difficult to separate specifically, 

 are prepared as needed from time to time. 



Thus after much patient toil, in which I have been greatly assisted by my 

 brother, S. F. Aaron, I feel that I am now in a position to offer aid to all who 

 possess undetermined species from any part of the Americas. This aid 1 freeh' 

 offer. While not anxious to describe new species myself I am anxious to amal- 

 gamate those already carelessly described, or to prevent, as far as possible, the 

 further manufacture of svnonvms. E. M. Aaron. 



