IV PREFACE. 



challenged conclusions of the latest writer in those families 

 that have been critically studied. So all species and genera 

 are treated as presumably good, unless the contrary has been 

 established. 



It is intended that every specific name found in the list of 

 1891 shall also appear in this ; but the synonyms of the old 

 list are omitted, unless their right to specific or varietal rank 

 has been re-established. Where a name now appears in the 

 synonymy in the same genus in which it appeared as a species 

 or variety in 1891, it is not especially distinguished ; but where 

 it now appears in another genus, it is followed by the number 

 borne in the old list. All bracketed numbers refer to the old 

 list whether they appear in the text or in the notes. Where 

 a genus (like Plusia) has been broken up and the species of 

 the old genus follow in successive genera, no especial refer- 

 ence has been deemed necessary. 



Generic names referred as identical with others appear, so 

 far as is practical, in the synonymy ; but where, as in the Geo- 

 metridae, and in Certain Tineid families, the entire arrange- 

 ment has been changed, and new generic terms are the rule 

 rather than the exception, the species bear the old list number 

 as an appendix where they are not now under the same 

 heading. 



The generic synonymy in this list must not be too strictly 

 taken, and it does not always mean that the name in italics 

 represents the same concept as that printed in full faced type 

 above it. It means only that the concept for which the used 

 term stands, was represented in the old list rightly or wrongly, 

 in whole or in part, by the term now placed in italics. 



Dr. Henry Skinner is again to be credited with the list of 

 Papilionoidea. Mr. W. D. Kearfott has prepared the list in 

 the lower Tineoidea, basing it upon the work by Fernald, 

 Busck and Dyar, as credited in Dyar'slist (Bull. 52, U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., 1902). In the Geometridae, a revision of the family 

 prepared by the late Dr. George D. Hulst has been used, and 

 all the notes prepared just prior to his death have been re- 

 garded. The sequence of families, and the list except as 

 above credited, must be charged to me ; and I have drawn on 



