AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



THE present volume completes the series on the Order 

 Lepidoptera^ as sketched out in the Preface to vol. ii. It 

 includes the Noctucz and Geometry among the larger Moths, 

 and the Micro-Lepidoptera. The first two sections are treated 

 as fully as the preceding groups, all the more important 

 families being noticed or illustrated; but in the case of the 

 Micro-Lepidoptera^ which, though comparatively little studied, 

 probably far exceed the Macro-Lepidoptera in numbers, it 

 was naturally impossible to do more than describe and figure 

 a selection of species belonging to various families, without 

 extending the work to one or two more volumes. 



A much larger number of species are described and figured 

 in this volume than in any of the preceding ones, and a con- 

 siderable number are here figured for the first time. In these 

 cases I have thought it best, as a rule, to reprint the original 

 description of the author who described the species. 



As before, Newman's figures have occasionally been drawn 

 upon, in order to illustrate the subjects more fully than the 

 limited number of plates at our disposal would allow. As 

 regards the coloured plates, most of the figures on pi. clviii., 

 and some of those on pi. clvi., are magnified ; but the real 

 dimensions are given in the text. 



I am indebted to Mr. A. VV. Kappel, F.L.S., the Librarian 

 of the Linnean Society, for kindly looking up the abstracts of 

 a paper by the Rev. Lansdown Guilding, which had been lost 

 sight of by Entomologists, and one of which I have reprinted 

 at pp. 267-269. 



W. F. KIRBY. 

 Chiswick, April, 1897. 



