THE ZooLoGisT—JANUARY, 1872. 2897 
Neis. On consulting Mr. Kirby’s Index I fail to find the genus 
under either of its names, or the name of any of these new species ; 
the British Museum is especially rich in this genus, and concluding 
that Mr. Kirby had availed himself of this National collection, I 
had great difficulty in accepting this an omission, yet from the 
Index I can draw no other conclusion. Such an omission, if it 
really be one, is a double disadvantage to the volume; it not only 
annoys the author neglected, but it leads him to the conclusion, 
perhaps erroneously, that others have shared the same fate. 
It is no trifle to make an index for such a work as this: the 
haute école of this branch of science dispenses with alphabetical 
indices in toto: we find no such index to Westwood’s ‘ Modern 
Classification’ or Stainton’s ‘ Manual,’ yet to this laborious work 
Mr. Kirby has given us an alphabetical index, which, so far as 
T have hitherto ascertained, is accurate; but still it is unsatisfactory, 
because of the difficulty of obtaining a speedy solution of any in- 
quiry you wish to make: this difficulty is a most formidable one, 
and is not to be overcome: it arises from the frequent recurrence 
of the same specific name; not to mention the names which occur 
in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate, or quintuplicate, we find 
that Alcyone, Amaryllis, Arcas, Aurora, Beroé, Herse, Californica, 
Celebensis, Clara, Diana, Nephele, Pales, Pallida, Saundersii and 
Westwoodii, each occur six times; Alexis, Arete, Argus, Athalia, 
Endymion, Felderi, Formosa, Helena and Occidentalis, each seven 
times; Australis, Horsfieldii, and Moorei each eight times; Affinis, 
Batesii, Doubledayi, Godartii, Hubneri, each nine times; Crameri 
ten times ; Hewitsonii fourteen times; and Boisduvalii fifteen times. 
None of us look forward to the perpetuity of modern genera; indeed 
Mr. Kirby has shown that they are more ephemeral than the 
Ephemera itself: after living their little day in the purgatory of meta- 
morphosis, they will inevitably revert to the Linnean genera from 
which they have been divided. When this day shall arrive, only 
one Papilio Boisduvalii, only one Papilio Hewitsonii, can possibly 
be retained; all the others must be rechristened. In the mean- 
time, how is this large family of Boisduvals or Hewitsons to be 
disposed of? the Boisduvaliis stand thus in Mr. Kirby’s Index, 
and they might almost as well be omitted altogether, for any in- 
formation that Index affords—“ Boisduvalii, 16, 55, 82, 116, 126, 
161, 197, 229, 258, 336, 365, 426, 486,517, 598;” supposing Pam- 
phila Boisduvalii to be required, we must go through the whole list 
