PREFACE. 



JT has for very many years been a favourite project of my own to publish a History of 

 British Butterflies and Moths, illustrated with woodcuts of each species, uniformly 

 with Van Voorst's series of Birds, Eeptiles, Fishes, Starfishes, Stalk-eyed Crustacea, 

 and Ferns. The success of these works in a mercantile point of view has been beyond 

 question ; and this fact involves another and more important conclusion, that an 

 extensive public has found them both serviceable and agreeable. Seeing this, and 

 believing I could furnish materials for a similar work on our native Lepidoptera, I 

 determined on such an undertaking as soon as those materials were complete. 



When I commenced the work it was intended to include the Deltoids, 

 Pyrales, Veneers, and Plumes ; and thus, with my own " British Butterflies" Mr. 

 Wilkinson's " Tortriccs" and Mr. Stainton's " Tinece" to form a descriptive list of all 

 the British Lepidoptera : but it was found impossible to make effective representations 

 in wood, of insects so minute as the majority of those contained in the four families I 

 have mentioned ; and extremely difficult to fix any scale by which to represent them 

 of a uniformly increased size: the difficulty, indeed, seemed so great that the 

 project has been abandoned for the present. 



It is, however, still under consideration to publish an illustrated Natural History 

 of the British Butterflies uniformly with this of the British Moths, representing each 

 species exactly life-size, and giving studiously accurate figures of a great number 

 of varieties : for this rather extensive work the text is already in a forward state ; 

 but many months will of necessity be occupied in drawing and engraving the 

 illustrations ; so that a year, at least, will elapse before this intended work can be 

 completed in such a manner as shall do credit to the artists as well as to the author : 

 as soon as any plan for this second undertaking is definitely settled, full particulars 

 will be advertised through the usual channels. 



Both these projects the Moths accomplished, and the Butterflies in preparation 

 are, so far as my information extends, entirely original and unique ; and we are all 

 aware that the carrying out of any new project must of necessity be somewhat 

 imperfect. The originality and isolation of the undertaking appear in my determination 

 to write all my descriptions both of the perfect insect and of the caterpillar from the 

 objects themselves, and not to compile them from previously published sources. In 

 this I have in great measure, but not wholly, succeeded : a few caterpillars have still 

 eluded my most anxious search ; and I have therefore adopted, and always with the 

 fullest acknowledgment, previously published descriptions. This desire for originality 

 certainly influenced my great predecessor Haworth, and he succeeded to admiration 

 in carrying it out so far as tho perfect insects are concerned, although he clothed his 

 descriptions in a language that has greatly restricted their utility. But I think he 

 has not described a single caterpillar j even in the case of the Death's-Head Hawk- 



