PREFACE 



THE object of the present volume has been to supply 

 one of a series of volumes treating of the various 

 vegetable and animal forms occurring in these islands. 



The subject of British Butterflies might be thought 

 to be pretty well exhausted, and yet for the young it is 

 a subject ever fresh, and the schoolboy can pore with 

 delight over a book treating of the Butterflies that flit 

 around him, little heeding that what is so new to him 

 is a trite subject to many of his seniors. 



We have in this country no first-rate standard work 

 treating of our Butterflies and Moths ; we have Yarrell's 

 'British Fishes' and Yarrell's 'British Birds' and 

 Hooker's ' British Ferns,' but we seek in vain for any 

 analogous work treating of our Lepidopterous Fauna ; 

 we have nothing like Godart and Duponchel's ' Papil- 

 lons de France,' or like Ochsenheimer and Trutschke's 



