288 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
pages of letterpress, and form an interesting subject for 
examination by the British lepidopterist, who will find a striking 
similarity between some of the species taken in so remote a place 
~as California and those from our own collecting grounds. 
In adopting for this work Heinemann’s system of classification 
as used in his ‘ Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schweiz,’ 
Lord Walsingham says:—‘‘ Many systems of generic subdivision 
have been suggested for this difficult group, but all appear to 
have been founded upon a study of European species only. So 
far as I have been able to judge, none of these various systems 
are sufficiently perfect and natural to facilitate the arrangement 
of a cosmopolitan collection. It is very desirable that some 
comprehensive system should be devised, but for this purpose a 
very careful study of specimens from all parts of the world is 
obviously necessary, and it may be long before such a work can 
be successfully undertaken. Until this has been done, any 
arrangement of this group of insects must, I think, be considered 
in part at least provisional.” In this we quite agree, for even the 
limited fauna, so far as regards the Tortricide, of these islands is 
not by any means satisfactory in the scientific arrangement 
generally adopted. 
“ Our American Cousins” will find the work under consideration 
a fine addition to the entomological literature of their country ; 
but we cannot help wishing that the same author and the same 
publishers would undertake as good and well illustrated a Natural 
History of the British Tortrices, or better still if it extended to 
the known species of the Palearctic region. Such a work, we 
need hardly point out, would be a great boon to those of our 
readers who study this obscure group of Lepidoptera, and we 
have no doubt would induce many to work who now shirk the 
apparent difficulties before them. It is a source of gratification 
to find the public money expended upon such work as that before 
us, and we should thank the Trustees for the issue of the 
book above alluded to, which it would be unreasonable to 
expect from private enterprise. Nevertheless we cannot help 
thinking it would be a still greater gratification to British 
entomologists to find the issue of a similar list, of the British 
Museum series, more closely connected with our own fauna. 
A work of this character would lead to a better knowledge of, and 
probably a large addition to, the Tortrices known to occur in 
these islands. 
