ae ie 
notice of so distinguished an entomologist may fitly find a 
place here. 
I had repeatedly noticed myself, when visiting France and 
conversing with entomologists there, that Monsieur Guenée did 
not seem to occupy so conspicuous a place in the minds of 
French entomologists as he did in the entomological circles in 
this country. I find that in the biographical notice of Guenée 
given by Mons. Paul Mabille in the ‘ Annales de la Société Ento- 
mologique de France,’ 1881 (p. 8), precisely the same sentiment 
is expressed :—‘‘ La réputation que Guenée s’était acquise était 
peut étre plus grande al’étranger que dans sa patrie; il est certain 
que ses travaux sont plus suivis en Angleterre qu’en France. En 
Allemagne, Guenée était regardé comme le premier gee ento- 
mologistes francais.”’ 
I am not quite prepared to endorse this last sentence ; indeed 
I could certainly mention one distinguished German _ ento- 
mologist, who never seems to have had any very exalted opinion 
of Achille Guenée; but it may be of interest to enquire how it 
happened that Guenée was so much thought of in England. 
To understand this we must glance at the state of Lepi- 
dopterology in this country some forty years ago, when a well- 
filled library of a British lepidopterist contained only Curtis’s 
‘Guide,’ and his ‘ British Entomology’; Stephens’ ‘ Systematic 
Catalogue,’ and his ‘Illustrations of British Insects’; Wood’s 
‘Index Entomologicus,’ and Westwood and Humphrey’s ‘ British 
Butterflies and British Moths’; Haworth’s ‘ Lepidoptera Britan- 
nica,’ in its complete form, was rarely to be met with. John 
Curtis himself and James Francis Stephens had far more exten- 
sive libraries, of course, and the latter threw his library open to 
all entomologists every Wednesday evening; but any regular 
correspondence and interchange of thought with Continental 
entomologists was never for a moment thought of, and the 
subject was looked at too exclusively from an insular point of 
view. 
In 1842 the late Henry Doubleday brought the name of 
Guenée prominently before English collectors by publishing, in 
the pages of the ‘Entomologist’ (i. 877—880), ‘A list of the 
British Noctuez, extracted from the arrangement of the European | 
species in the ‘ Annales de la Société Entomologique de France,’ 
by M. Guenée.” This arrangement by Guenée had appeared 
