THE ZOOLOGIST 
LSe2 
Hotices of Hew Books. 
A Synonymic List of Diurnal Lepidoptera. By W. F. Kirsy, 
Author of ‘A Manual of European Butterflies, &c. London: 
John Van Voorst, 1, Paternoster Row. Demy 8vo, 690 pp., 
price 2ls. 
Tus work contains the names and synonyms of seven thousand 
six hundred and ninety-five species of butterflies—a fact which 
needs only to be stated in order to make the entomological reader 
aware of the labour incurred in its compilation. 
In reviewing a work of this kind four problems have to be 
solved:—1l. Is the arrangement good? 2. Are the names well 
selected? 3. Is the synonymy accurate? 4. Is the work com- 
plete ?—that is to say, Has the author confined his investigations 
to certain works of standard excellence and acknowledged 
authority, or has he searched our Natural-History periodicals for 
all the descriptions of new species published subsequently to 
those standard works, thus bringing up the bibliography of 
butterflies to the date of publication? I will express my opinion 
on all these points. 1. I think Mr. Kirby has wisely adopted 
the natural or larval arrangement of butterflies, instead of the 
artificial arrangement by size and colour hitherto universal in 
this country: it is no reflection on reviewer or reviewed that we 
differ in some of the details. 2 I think Mr. Kirby’s selec- 
tion of names, both generic and specific, singularly unhappy ; 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. VII. B 
