Prospectus. 
Pita NATURAL’ HISTORY 
OF 
THE TINEINA. 
Ir had long been a matter of reproach to English Collectors 
of LepipopTerA that they were not observers of the objects 
of their pursuit, and especially that they knew nothing of 
the preparatory states of the Insects they caught. 
This was especially true with respect to the TINEINA; 
but of late years more attention has been paid to their 
larvee, and a considerable quantity of materials towards the 
Natura History of this Group having been collected, it 
is proposed to make it generally useful by publication on 
the following plan, by which the difficulty, hitherto urged, 
of its incompleteness, will, to a great extent, be obviated. 
When it has hitherto been attempted to give the Vatural 
fistory of Insects, in the order of the relation of the 
species to each other, it has followed in consequence of the 
economy of the majority of the species being unknown, 
that nine-tenths of the matter has been dry descriptions of 
perfect insects only. To obviate this serious defect it is 
now proposed to publish a Series of Octavo Volumes, each 
contaming THE FULL NATURAL HISToRY of Twenty-four 
allied Species; thus the order of the appearance of the 
volumes will mainly depend on the progress made in inves- 
tigating the Natural Histories of the Species of any particular 
Genus. 
One important feature in the proposed work is the Plates, 
of which there will be Eight in each volume; they will be 
coloured, and each will represent on a magnified scale the 
Transformations of Three Species. These Plates will be 
brought out with great care, and the execution of them is 
entrusted to Mr. W. Wing. The Plates to Mr. Douglas’s 
“Contributions to the Natural History of the British Micro- 
Lepidoptera,’ which have appeared in the Transactions of 
the Entomological Society, may be referred to as specimens. 
