128 LEPIDOPTERA. 



noted for the production of the " delicacies " which induce 

 the majority of us, as regularly as the time comes round, to 

 visit the same old haunts punctually at certain dates, and, 

 after woi'king away for a stated interval, to return home 

 with our store-houses lined with a repetition of the captures 

 of previous years, instead of striving after the attainment of 

 new fact;*, one of which ascertained is worth more than the 

 mere acquisition of a hundred specimens of rarity. 



Thirdly, as has often before been suggested, a more wide- 

 spread interest in the works of our continental fellow- 

 labourers could not fail to be productive of valuable results 

 by which our store of knowledge would be enriched, and 

 novelties and novel facts would be of more frequent recur- 

 rence. We might, perhaps, had we been fortified with a 

 goodly stock of book-lore, have predicted the occurrence of, 

 and even have been upon the track of, such species as the 

 aforesaid Aplasta^ the splendid Xyllna Zinckenii, and the 

 not uncomely Tortrix ochreanay all of which have, until the 

 present year, escaped the notice of British collectors. 



And lastly, by attention to the more neglected groups 

 of our favourite order, very much remains to be accom- 

 plished both at home and abroad; many at present un- 

 detected species require but to be sifted out as it v.ere and 

 brought to light. Such are the thrice-taught lessons the 

 wisdom of which a restrospect of the discoveries of 1866 

 corroboi-ate and impress upon us, and which, say what one 

 may, have been pretty generally neglected, especially of late 

 years, by a large majority of British Lepidopterists, who 

 are content to rush after and accumulate stores of some 

 " good thing " or other which they or anybody else may 

 have had the luck to stumble on. 



Our list of novelties does not by any means present so 

 meagre an appearance as might from the unfavourable cli- 



