118 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 
with another epistolary shot ; in due time, under date March 17, 1873, 
came another letter from Couper thus: ‘I have purposely delayed a reply 
to your favor of 2nd, because since its receipt I wrote again to Mr. W. 
Saunders for the desired information, and my letter was written in terms 
which could not deter him from answering ; however, no answer has been 
received.’ After receiving this letter, I, of course, concluded that Mr. 
Saunders’ time was of too much value to be encroached upon, and 
requested Mr. Couper to by no means trouble him again, as his dignified 
silence at last brought me to a proper sense of my true position, and was 
a merited punishment to both Couper and myself for our temerity.” 
I did receive the two letters referred to from Mr. Couper. In the 
first, dated Jan. 21, Mr. C. asks me where I obtained the Papilio described 
as brevicauda,and whether I would loan him a specimen, as he wished to 
compare it with some Anticosti Papilio’s which had been named for him 
by his U. S. correspondents as ?. folyxenes. There were other matters 
- referred to in the letter which I wished to attend to before replying to 
Mr. Couper, and as I was then extremely busy, and was obliged to leave 
home for a while, not knowing either that there was any pressing need of 
an immediate answer, I deferred writing for a time. In the second letter, 
dated March 3rd, Mr. C. refers again among other matters to P. brevicauda, 
expresses no disappointment at my not answering his first, does not even 
now ask for a prompt reply, or hint that any of the information he desires 
was for anyone but himself. Indeed, after referring to some differences 
which he thought existed between his Anticosti specimens and my 
brevicauda from Newfoundland, he says : “It is my dnfention to investigate 
this matter further,” and referred to the opportunities he hoped to have 
on revisiting the Island. ‘To this second letter I replied as promptly as 
possible, within a few days, and gave Mr. C. all the information in my 
power in reference to drcvicauda, as well as satisfactory reasons why I had 
not written sooner. 
It was scarcely kind of Mr. Couper to give me no hint of the terrible 
state of excitement under which his friend, poor Mr. Strecker, was at that 
time laboring, boiling over, as he evidently was, with indignation towards 
one who was perfectly innocent of all knowledge of his wants. Had I 
known the state of his mind my sympathies would at once have been 
aroused and I should have written promptly, when I suppose this formid- 
able bull of his would never have been fulminated against me, and I 
should have been spared from being impaled on the sharp end of Mr. 
