478 Bihliogra/phical Notices. 



A Synonymic Catalogxie of Diurnal Lepidoptera. By W. F. KrRBY. 

 8vo, pp. 690. London: Van Voorst, 1871. 



The Diurnal Lepidoptera have long been a favourite study, and at 

 the present time, in this country at least, are receiving an amount 

 of attention which has probably never been surpassed. Every 

 quarter of the globe is being ransacked for novelties ; and the results 

 of numerous expeditions are being constantly made known through 

 the pictorial works of Mr. Hewitson and Mr. Butler, as weU as 

 through the medium of the Proceedings and Transactions of those 

 societies whose pages are open to such matter. At a time when 

 most writers and collectors are striving only how they may increase 

 the number of described species, it is a pleasure to find a man who 

 will undergo the self-imposed drudgery of revising the whole sub- 

 ject with a view of putting the synonymy of the established species 

 in proper accordance with modern ideas. And this is what Mr. 

 Kirby has done in his recently published Catalogue of Diurnal 

 Lepidoptera. He has carefuUy collated all the references to de- 

 scriptions of the butterflies described since the time of Linnseus 

 (very properly, we think, selecting the 12th edition of the ' Systema 

 Naturae ' as his starting point) down to the date of the publication 

 of his book (1871). So far as we can see, and the list of authors 

 quoted whose works Mr. Kii'by has consulted in whole or in part 

 aids us in forming an opinion*, the literature of the Diurnal Lepi- 

 doptera has been pretty thoroughly searched; and this catalogue 

 may be trusted with reasonable confidence as including a sufiiciently 

 accurate list of the described species for practical reference by future 

 writers. 



It will thus be seen that this work will be of very great service 

 in arranging a cabinet and in the determination of species. 



In the internal arrangement of his subject we think that Mr. 

 Kirby has hardly been so successful. In his preface he says that it 

 appeared to him that any arrangement of the species in each genus 

 was better than an alphabetical one ; here, we think, he was 

 wrong, and that, had he adopted such an arrangement, several diffi- 

 culties involving error would have been avoided. It is hardly to be 

 supposed that Mr. Kirby should be autopticaUy acquainted with 

 nearly all the species he was arranging ; and we think we trace to 

 Mr. Hewitson and Mr. Butler, whose aid he frankly acknowledges, the 

 criticisms respecting the validity of many species scattered through- 

 out his pages. To the former we attribute the free use of the term 

 " variety," and to the latter the minute specific subdivisions by 

 which aU his work is characterized. These two systems, if such they 

 are, cannot be made to work harmoniously in the same book ; and 

 this we think Mr. Kirby ought to have seen. 



*• Mr. Kirby marks the names of the authors the whole of whose works he 

 has consulted with an asterisk (*), those which he has seen only in part thus t ; 

 he omits to tell us the state of his knowledge concerning those works which bear 

 no special mark at all. 



