INTEODUCTOKT BEMAKKS. 



any further examination of the systems above mentioned, so far 

 as relates to system and classification, these works being founded 

 almost exclusively on a single character, and accordingly artificial, 

 while it greatly confirmed the views which had directed my re- 

 searches in Java, as will appear in the sequel. 



Although the Wiener Verzeichniss has been called a system, it 

 can only be considered as an accumulation of materials of the 

 metamorphoses of European Lepidoptera, to serve for comparison by 

 Entomologists in other countries. The authors have not attempted 

 a new Classification of the whole Order of Lepidoptera on their 

 own principles. In the large divisions they adopt the Genera of 

 Linnaeus, although they have transposed the Genera of that author, 

 commencing with Sphinx Phalaena, and terminating with Papilio ; 

 the cause of this transposition is not explained. Mr. Westwood, in 

 his " Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects," gives a 

 summary of the subdivisions and families into which the Wiener 

 Verzeichniss is divided, with the remark, that almost every one of 

 the divisions constitutes a modern genus. This work, although 

 little known or regarded in England and France, is held in high 

 estimation in Germany, where, at the period of its publication, it 

 formed an epoch among cultivators of Entomology. Not many 

 years after its first appearance, a new edition was required, which 

 was undertaken on a somewhat reduced scale by the celebrated 

 Illiger, who describes it as one of the most acute and instructive 

 works on Entomology ever published ; indeed, in its literary and 

 philosophical character it may be ranked with the most perfect 

 works on Natural Science extant at the time of its publication. It 

 takes a most comprehensive view of Entomology in all its depart- 

 ments ; it notices in detail all the authors and systems published 

 at its appearance, near the end of the last century ; and the research 

 and learning displayed in its compilation are highly creditable to 

 the authors. After stating the design of their work, the authors 

 describe, in a manner perhaps more comprehensive and complete 

 than is done in any other entomological treatise, the history and 

 peculiarities of Lepidopterous Insects, from the egg to the Butter- 

 fly, interspersed with many original remarks, founded on their own 

 observation. The description of the families and of the individual 

 larvai and chrysalides arc given with the greatest minuteness. A 

 series of notes and quotations is carried through the whole work, 



