PREFACE. 



It is with regret, not however unmixed with satisfaction, that I come to the 

 close of a work which has been to me a twenty-five years' labour of love. 



With regret that age and failing health forbid me to commence another 

 volume. 



With satisfaction when I remember the great kindness which I have 

 experienced personally from all lepidopterists during its progress, and the very 

 favourable reception it has met with from all, and especially from those whose 

 position as naturalists gives value to their opinions. 



I have many times during the progress of the book expressed my grati- 

 tude for the kindness and liberality which I have met with from Dr. Boisduval, 

 not only in giving me free access to his collections, but in allowing me during 

 his absence to select from them and bring home with me all that I wished to 

 figure, feeling, as I do, the difliculty I should myself experience in being parted 

 from any of my treasures. To the generous encouragement met with from 

 Mr. Wilson Saunders, especially at its commencement, the work owes much of 

 its success. 



I am fuUy aware of and regret many errors, but have endeavoured to 

 atone for them as much as possible by myself pointing them out and correcting 

 them. It has always been my study to make the work useful rather than 

 attractive. If I have succeeded in both, my utmost wishes have been attained.' 



As one instance of the great additions which have been made to the 

 diurnal Lepidoptera, during its progress nearly two hundred species have been 

 added to the genus Ithomia on its plates. 



I have always seen the necessity, if my work is to be of any use to 

 entomology, of illustrating by figures all the species I have myself described, 

 seeing that descriptions — not of the old authors only, but of those of more recent 

 date — of Godart and others, especially when they refer to nearly allied species such 

 as Thecla~are not of the slightest use. I am sorry to say that several species of 

 my describing are not yet figured, and that I now find it desirable to describe 

 others which remain unnamed in my collection, but all these, and they are chiefly 

 obscure Hesperida?, I hope to figure as my last contribution to the science which 

 I have so much loved. 



My estimation of generic distinction has been considerably modified since 



