RECENT LITERATURE. 207 



on the association of a Homopteron with a Lycasnid butterfly ob- 

 served in Borneo. The following papers were read: — "Mr. A. D. 

 Millar's Experimental Breeding of Euralia," by Koland Trimen, 

 M.A., F.E.S., F.L.S.; " Notes on the ScoliidaB," and " New Possorial 

 Hymenoptera from Australia," by Eowland E. Turner, F.E.S. ; " On 

 the position of the Ehopalosomidae, with Description of a Second 

 New Species," by Claude Morley, F.E.S. ; " Descriptions of Malayan 

 Micro-Lepidoptera,"- by Edward Meyrick, B.A., F.E.S., F.Z.S. ; " On 

 the Specific Distinctions between Achrcea hjcoa, Godt., and Aclircea 

 johnstoni, Godm.," by Harry Eltringham, M.A., F.Z.S. — The follow- 

 ing Fellows will represent the Society as delegates to the Interna- 

 tional Congress of Entomology at Brussels : Dr. F. A. Dixey, M.A., 

 M.D., F.E.S., President; Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe, F.Z.S., Mr. F. 

 Merrifield, and Mr. E. Trimen, M.A., F.E.S., F.L.S.— H. Eowland- 

 Brown, M.A., Hon. Secretary. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



A Natural History of the British Butterflies. By J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. 

 Vol. iii. London : Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Eow, E.C. 



The third volume of Mr. Tutt's monumental work on the British 

 Butterflies will appeal not only to native collectors and students of 

 the rather limited butterfly fauna of these islands, but to the many 

 who are extending their researches to the v/ider sphere of the palse- 

 arctic region generally. For example, there are two species, now for 

 the first time exhaustively treated, which have proved something of 

 a stumbling-block to most of us — Everes argiades and Plebeius argus 

 [agon). Continental authorities have expressed their suspicions about 

 var. alcetas, Hb. {coretas, 0.), for some time ; and M. Charles Oberthiir 

 has already pointed out the main differences between the hitherto 

 so-called variety and the type. Mr. Tutt completely diagnoses both 

 as separate species ; and we can only say that we wish E. argiades 

 had a better claim to be regarded as an indigenous species. So 

 elaborately is the subject treated, however, that no entomologist who 

 has read these closely printed pages of life-history should fail to 

 recognize his capture at whatever stage efi'ected ; and it is to be 

 hoped that something of the meticulous industry displayed by the 

 author in the study will communicate itself to the observer in the 

 field on the look-out for what, with fine insular exclusiveness, we 

 have dubbed " the Bloxworth Blue." Yet the confusion, hitherto 

 existing in the case of the two Everids, is as nothing compared with 

 that involved with Plebeius argus {agon, Schiff'.) and P. argyrognomon 

 {argus, auctorum), though British writers have not been quite so 

 hopelessly inconsistent in their classification of the two species as 

 those of the Continent ; for the good reason, probably, that so far 

 P. argyrognomon has not turned up in the United Kingdom, even in 

 the imaginative literature of the early Aurelians ! Now we know, 

 however, that structurally the two butterflies, which some have 

 found so difficult to separate, present sufficiently striking differ- 



