59.57,8 (67.5) 



Article VI.— LEPIDOPTERA OF THE CONGO, BEING A SYSTE- 

 MATIC LIST OF THE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS COL- 

 LECTED BY THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL 

 HISTORY CONGO EXPEDITION, TOGETHER 

 WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME HITHER- 

 TO UNDESCRIBED SPECIES^ 



By W. J. Holland 

 Plates VI to XIV and 9 Text Figures 



About twenty-five j^ears ago I published a number of papers upon 

 the Lepidoptera of tropical Africa, in which I described numerous forms, 

 which appeared to me to be new to science. These papers appeared in 

 various journals.^ I am pleased to observe that in most cases the 

 correctness of my judgment with the lapse of time has been con- 

 firmed, and but few of the species named in these publications have 

 been relegated to the synonymy. In the case of the moths my industri- 

 ous and learned friend. Sir George F. Hampson, in his monumental 

 work upon the moths of the world, has in some instances changed the 

 generic references, but has accepted most of the new genera of Hetero- 

 cera which I proposed, and has allowed my specific names to stand. At 

 the time to which I refer I had in contemplation the preparation of a 

 comprehensive work upon the butterflies of Africa. As a preliminary 

 to this large undertaking I published in the Proceedings of the Zoo- 

 logical Society of London, 1896, pp. 1-104, a 'Synonymic Catalogue 

 of the Hesperiidse of Africa and the Adjacent Islands.' Shortly after 

 this had appeared I became aware through correspondence that my 

 friend, Dr. Christopher Aurivillius, the Secretary of the Royal Academy 

 of Science in Stockholm, was about to publish a work upon the same 

 subject. It presently appeared under the title 'Rhopalocera ^Ethiopica.' 

 To my astonishment I discovered that the author had paid me the 

 compliment of omitting from his treatise the great family of the Hes- 

 periidse, for the reason, as he states in his introduction, that this family 

 had been so thoroughly covered in my recently published paper, that 

 he did not deem it necessary to ret raverse the ground. With the appear- 

 ance of the great work of Dr. Aurivillius the motive to further prosecute 

 my self-imposed labors vanished to a great degree, but ni}^ interest in 



'Scientific Results of the American Museum Congo Expedition. Entomology, No. 6. 

 ^Entomological News, Psyche, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Canadian Entomolo- 

 gist, Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum, and Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 



