THE BUTTERFLIES. 3 



e, Plebeii parvi. Larva saepius contracta. 



Rurales. Alis maculis obscurioribus. 

 Urbicolae. Alis saepius maculis pellucidis. 



/ Barbari. Corollarii in loco adjecti, ad ordinem non relati. 



Many writers argue that our nomenclature should commence 

 from the twelfth edition of Linnaeus' "Systema Naturae" 

 (1767)* and not the tenth; but the Linnean system was fully es- 

 tablished in the tenth edition, and was adopted by most authors 

 of repute between 1758 and 1767. No alterations of much im- 

 portance were made in the twelfth, nor can even Linnaeus' own 

 species be satisfactorily identified without reference to works 

 published by himself and others in the interim. Hence the tenth 

 edition is now regarded by most entomologists as their starting- 

 point. With respect to Butterflies, the only alterations of im- 

 portance in the twelfth edition are the suppression of the section 

 Papiliones Barbari^ the species which it contained being dis- 

 tributed among the other sections ; and the substitution of the 

 words " saepe denudatis " for " integerrimis striatis " in the 

 definition of the Heliconii. Fabricius afterwards gave the 

 name Parnassii to the section indicated by the words " saepe 

 denudatis." 



The Linnean genus Papilio, applied by him in his earlier 

 works to the whole of the Lepidoptera, and in 1758 and subse- 

 quently to the whole of the Butterflies, was soon subdivided 

 by later authors into smaller genera, and the systems in 

 vogue in France and Germany differed somewhat. Thus we 

 find Ochsenheimer in 1816 arranging the European genera of 



* This is the rule laid down by the British Association, but as excep- 

 tions were admitted, it is not always considered absolutely binding. The 

 year 1766 is the date of the first volume of the " Systema" ; but the part 

 relating to insects is dated 1767. The eleventh edition (1760) is merely & 

 re-print of the tenth. 



