( 500 ) 



lack of time — and he ma}-, moreover, fiud the yonng caterpillar, or at least its head, 

 in those eggn which are situated in the oviduct. "We cannot advise the Lepidopterist 

 in the way Professor Poulton seems to do — namely, to go on separating species 

 and varieties in the old way, and leave it to the observer of the life-history to 

 correct the mistakes. The systematist can do more, although (as a matter of 

 conrse) the observation of the life-history will always remain the iilfima ratio also 

 in systematic work. We mnst not forget that the sexes of many or most insects 

 do not recognise one another by the distinguishing characters by which we are 

 able to separate the species. There are specific characters beyond those, characters 

 which are no more of a spiritual kind than the distinctions in pattern, organs of 

 copulation, colour, etc. Are we debarred from hunting for them and discovering 

 them? AVe must remember that the Helniinthologist would scarcely look with 

 satisfaction on worms preserved in the way of Lepidoptera ; a papered specimen 

 would hardly be of much good to him. The Jhitomologist need not absolutely 

 stick to dried-up specimens. 



The ideal here presented may be too lofty for many ; but that is no reason 

 ■why an admirer of the frail and beautiful children of Nature should not try to 

 advance from the position of a distant amateur to that af an intimate amant. 



The great drawback in systematic research is the frequent lack of adequate 

 material. AVhen working through the African si)ecies of Precis for the purposes 

 of this paper, we had no difficulty in ascertaining that Precis cuama is the same 

 species as trimcni, pclarcja the same as lendicc, that pelorgoides is the " wet phase " 

 of sinuaia, that anfilope (= simia) is distinct from cuama (= trimeni), that milonia 

 is distinct from sinuata and the other forms which Aurivillius has treated as 

 varieties of ■milonia, etc. But we have not been able to come to a definite con- 

 clusion about Precis tugelci, aurorina, and pyrijoi-mis, from lack of material. If 

 one wants to find out the extent of variation in a species, it is obviously necessary 

 to possess the material which exhibits the variation. It is no more possible to 

 determine the limits of variation of a species from a few specimens, than it is 

 to study the characters of an individual from a piece of a wing. It was M. Charles 

 Oberthiir who more than twenty years ago remonstrated with Entomologists 

 against the habit of restricting themselves to a small number of individuals of 

 each species and variety, and who addressed to them an appeal for correct labelling 

 with exact locality and date of capture. A large and well-labelled material is a 

 necessary premiss for good systematic work ; without it the systematist is con- 

 stantly hampered in his labours. Judging from the materials offered to the Tring 

 Museum from various sources on thei Continent, there are still Entomologists, 

 dealers, and their collectors in the Tropics who are unaware of the great importance 

 of correct labelling. Frequent admonitions administered from various sides to this 

 kind of suppliers has done much to improve this state of things, and it is to be 

 hoped that also all the smaller collections will by-and-by come up in labelling 

 to the standard of the more recent parts of the Hope Department of the Oxford 

 Museum, and of the collection of M. Charles Oberthiir, so that, when those 

 small private collections ultimately come into some public institute, the material 

 there accumulating will be worth preserving. We are specially pleased that 

 Herr Oscar Neumann and Baron von Erlanger have been so careful in dating 

 the Lepidoptera ; indeed, we could hardly expect from such ardent students of 

 geograj)hical variation that they would be negligent in this point. 



