Mr. H. T. Stainton on Micro-Lepidopterology. 83 



apparent impossibility of naming his capture ; there would be no 

 pleasure in catching a new species, and the science would stand 

 still. 



We are always apt to compare works with those which have 

 succeeded them, whereas it would be more correct to compare 

 them only with those which have preceded them. Viewed in this 

 light, however intrinsically worthless Treitschke may now appear 

 to us, there cjn be no question that it rendered most essential 

 service to the science in its day, and contributed very materially 

 to the onward progess of Micro-Lepidopterological discovery. 



In 1838 appeared Duponchel's eleventh volume of his " Lepi- 

 dopteres de France." Published after Treitsclike's and Stephens's 

 works had given their impulse to the study, it is not surprising 

 that in many respects it was an improvement upon either, and 

 embellished with coloured figures of all the insects it described, 

 one would have thought that France, possessing such a work, 

 would soon take the lead in the path of y'inert-invfstrgation. 

 But it has not been so, and this volume of Duponchel's remains 

 as a sort of high water-mark to show the highest point which the 

 study of the Tincce ever attained in France. Even Duponchel 

 himself, in his Supplement, came down-hill with a fearful velocity, 

 and no one has yet been found in France to repair the tissue of 

 blunders he then perpetrated. 



But one year after the publication of Duponchel's handsome 

 8vo. appeared a small paper in a little-known German scientific 

 journal ; yet this paper has exercised an influence over the develop- 

 ment of the science, such as it seldom falls to the lot of one 

 individual to wield. — Zeller's " Versuch einer nalurgemassen 

 Eintheilung der Schaben" appeared in Oken's "Isis" for 1839. 



It will be interesting to notice the cause of this small paper 

 exercising so vast an influence. Those who were collecting this 

 group of insects in this country, twenty or even ten years ago, are 

 aware that species were referred to certain genera, by rules entirely 

 arbitrary; this was an Aphelosetla, that was an Amauroselia ; but 

 why it was so, no one knew ; it was all guess work. This fault 

 was not peculiar to us as English : it prevailed in Germany, it 

 prevailed in France ; in the last-named country, I believe, it 

 prevails to the present day. Now it was impossible to look 

 through this " Attempt at a Systematic Arrangement of the Tine3e" 

 of Zeller, without perceiving that good tangible characters were 

 given for the genera ; that they were, so to speak, mathematically 

 distinct. You had only to take up an insect, examine its palpi, 

 antennae, form of hind wings, &c., and at once you could settle in 



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