42 PERSONAL. 



and Anticostiensis (if tliev be not the same) are both varieties of Asterius." "Why Mr. Strecker considers it absurd 

 to call a species brevicauda lie does not deign to inform us ; can it be that he has a conscientious objection to any 

 further references to the tails of insects under any circumstances, or is it the evident superiority in length and grandil- 

 oquence of sound which Anticostiensis lias over breiicauda which raalces the use of the latter to his mind so absurd ? 

 It does seem strange that with all Mr. Strecker's anxiety to avoid " re-christening old species," he should astonish 

 the Entomological world with such a name as Anticostiensis nov. sp., when at the same time he states his belief in 

 the probability of its being but a variety of Asterias. Such -a proceeding seems at least contradictory, and, it will 

 appear to some, as if he had thus placed himself, in his anxiety to have his name attached to a species, in the very 

 position he professes a wish to avoid, and which he has designated in such choice ! language. — W. SaundebSj 

 London, Ontai'io. 



My thanks are due to Mr. W. Saunders of the editing committee of tlie Canadian Ento- 

 mologist for ihe above splendid and entirely unexpected advertisement of this work, which I 

 find in the June number of that publication just issued ; in looking over the ever-welcome 

 pages of the Entomologist, I found commendatory notices of twenty-five or more serials, but 

 the present work on Lepidoptera was not, from some accidental cause, I supjjosed, among the 

 number, but what were my feelings on turning a few images further to find, that whilst such 

 standard works as Hardwicke's Science Gossip, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc, Phil., NeMman's Ento- 

 mologist, &c., had received but a few lines of editorial notice, my own poor work, owing to the 

 generosity of Mr. Saunders, one of the able corps of editors, had assigned to it two and-a-half 

 pages ! the emotions of Mr. Saunders must have been intense ; he gives me his sympathy, 

 his compassion, lie feels sorry for me to a degree that evidently lacks language to express it- 

 self, and, finally, in his wonderful and rare self-abnegation, his extreme modesty, (that un- 

 erring index of all great minds,) he affects to ask so unworthy an individual as myself for 

 information, not directly it is true, but delicately by intimation; of course Mr. Saunders 

 knows already anything I can tell him, and every one knows that he docs too, which only 

 further enhances the delicacy of the compliment ; but still, far be it from me to be so lacking 

 in respect to the Ent. Autocrat of the Canadas as not to go through the form of a reply, at 

 least ; the reason I did not, to quote Mr. Saunders, " deign to inform us," (the "us," I humbly 

 presume, means Mr. Saunders,) why it was absurd to call a species Brevicauda was simply 

 because the information was already given on the last few lines of page 11 and the first couple 

 of page 12 of this work ; by reading the whole of the article on Papilio Anticostiensis, it will 

 be seen that the expression, that it would be absurd to retain the name of Brevicauda, was 

 provisional, and only in the event that Brevicauda and Anticostiensis were the same, for the 

 reason that the tails of the latter are no shorter than in many other species, such for instance 

 as P. Zolicaou, Macliaou, Hospiton, Philenor, Sadalus, Agamemnon, Indra, Xuthulus, &c., 

 so that if it should eventually be proven that Anticostiensis is identical with Brevicauda I ' 

 certainly would, in my woeful ignorance, persist in considering the name Brevicauda absurd 

 when applied to a species with tails no shorter than twenty others of the same genus. 



Regarding my astonishing " the Entomological world with such a name as Anticostiensis," 

 I can only say if the said M'orld is astonished, it has experienced the same sensation before, at 

 least that part of it has whose studies extend beyond the narrow confines of some province 

 or county, for such names as Xeelgherriensis,* Ladakensis,f Mephistopheles,| Goschkevitschii,§ 



*Lcthe Neelgherriensis, Guerin. 

 fColias Ladakensis, Feld. 

 JHeterochroa Mephistopheles, Butl. 

 JLasiommata Goschkevitschii, Men. 



