REVIEW. 285 



works is increasing. With our modern facilities for travel, and 

 the increased study of modern languages, too, our knowledge is 

 no longer confined to British species or British publications. 

 Although J. F. Stephens wrote in English, he complained bitterly 

 fifty years ago of German entomologists for not writing in Latin ; 

 and many of the errors in his works are attributable to his 

 having frequently attempted to identify British species with those 

 of Ochsenheimer and Treitschke, for example, by the aid of the 

 Latin diagnoses only. The lepidopterists of a later period (about 

 twenty-five years ago) collected only British species, and looked 

 on the study of foreign insects with great dislike, and almost 

 with contempt. Although there were several entomologists who 

 collected foreign Lepidoptera at that time, yet the only man in 

 England\vho made a^special study of European Lepidoptera was 

 Mr. J. R. Hind, who shortly afterwards gave up the study 

 of Entomology, but to whose encouragement, and to that of Mr. 

 Stainton, was ; really due the publication of Kirby's ' Manual 

 of European Butterflies,' a book which, whatever its imperfections, 

 broke the ice, and encouraged travellers on the Continent to 

 collect and study butterflies for themselves ; and the study of 

 European Macro-Lepidoptera has recently been further popu- 

 larised by the same author's ' European Butterflies and Moths.' 



The publication of Dr. Lang's elaborate work marks another 

 advance. Being restricted to a limited group (for the European 

 butterflies only number about 300 species), the author has 

 endeavoured to work up his subject thoroughly, and has not only 

 described every recognised European species, with full notices of 

 transformations, varieties, localities, &c, but has given us ex- 

 cellent figures of all the species, with but two exceptions, and of 

 many of their larva?. The indices too, a matter of no little 

 importance, are very full. 



Nor has Dr. Lang wholly confined himself to European 

 species. One argument employed against collecting European 

 insects was, that we could not draw a hard-and-fast line, and that 

 if we extended our collections beyond Britain, in order to study 

 the allied Continental species, we must likewise collect those 

 of the adjacent parts of Asia. This is true in a wider sense 

 than the objectors supposed, for everyone now clearly recognises 

 that Europe forms but a part of the Palsearctic Region ; and the 

 authors of the standard ' Catalogue of European Lepidoptera ' 



