INTRODUCTION. 69 



specimens, and, in general, kept no record of their 

 localities, or natural history properly so called. 

 Collections from China and the East Indies were 

 indiscriminately mixed, in their way homewards, with 

 others from the Cape of Good Hope ; and American 

 species were in like manner mingled with such as 

 are proper to the West Indian islands. Hence it 

 followed, that Fabricius and others were so often 

 led into error when they indicated the native coun- 

 try of the kinds they described : but, indeed, the 

 author just named did not very frequently attempt 

 this, but merely says, " From the Indies " — an ex- 

 pression which means nothing more explicit, in his 

 acceptation of it, than that the species in question 

 is exotic. Linnaeus, also, when he uses the same 

 word, means indiscriminately either the East or 

 West Indies. The indications of localities in mo- 

 dern works are in general copious and accurate, but 

 they have not hitherto been made the basis of any 

 general and satisfactory view of the distribution of 

 the species. 



As might be expected in the case of animals en- 

 dowed with considerable power of flight, certain 

 kinds of diurnal lepidoptera have a much more ex- 

 tensive range than most other insects — than the 

 coleoptera for example. It is now ascertained that 

 Cynthia cardui, a species well known throughout 

 Europe, (without confounding it, as may sometimes 

 have been done, with the kindred species C. Hun- 

 terij, occurs in Senegal, Egypt, Barbary, Cape of 

 Good Hope, in the islands of Bourbon and Mada- 



