NATURE 



173 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 



1S79 



INDIAN ENTOMOLOGY 



Descriptions of New Indian Lepidopteroits Insects, from 

 the Collection of the Late Mr. IV. S. Atkinson, M.A., 

 F.L.S., &*c. Part I. Rhopalocera, by W. C. Hewitson, 

 F.L.S. ; Heterocera, by Frederic Moore, Assist. Curator, 

 India Museum. With an Introductory Notice by 

 Arthur Grote, F.Z.S., &c. 4to, pp. 1-88, with Three 

 Coloured Plates. (Calcutta : Published by the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, 1879.) 



THE hot valleys of the Himalayan regions of our 

 Indian Empire have always justly had especial 

 interest from an entomological point of view. The 

 number of peculiar and apparently strictly endemic, 

 forms of insects already known from this region is 

 great, and principally in the larger species, for even 

 now we know less of the smaller insect-forms of North 

 India than we do of many other less familiar districts not 

 under the advantage of British rule. Indeed, with a few 

 notable exceptions, much of the knowledge we now possess 

 is not precisely of modern origin. The somewhat nume- 

 rous military expeditions to, and across, the Himalayas, 

 undertaken within the last quarter of a century, and the 

 great recent extension of tea and cinchona plantations in 

 these regions, have not resulted in a corresponding in- 

 crease in materials for a Himalayan insect-fauna. In 

 some respects it may be said that we are likely to know 

 more of the entomology of the Lake region of Africa, or 

 of the Amazons region of South America, than of a vast 

 and varied district, for the most part under the govern- 

 ment of our own countrymen, and of a commercial 

 importance second (to us) to no other. Still, important 

 and wonderful discoveries have been made of late years, 

 but they are perhaps eclipsed by the acknowledged exist- 

 ence of forms discovered long ago which would have 

 become almost traditional were it not that the "types" 

 exist in collections, and that they were duly described 

 and delineated with infinite care in works that are no 

 longer modern. As a summary, then, to the foregoing 

 short introduction to a notice of a modern work on Indian 

 Entomology, it may be briefly stated that a great deal of 

 our knowledge was initiated before the present generation 

 and has not since been adequately supplemented. 



But, as before-mentioned, there have been notable ex- 

 ceptions, and of these the most notable exists in the 

 fruits of the labours of the much-lamented and talented 

 Mr. Atkinson, an entomologist who, before he left this 

 country for India, had acquired a training in entomological 

 pursuits that his keen powers of observation enabled him 

 to use to the best advantage in the intervals of official 

 duties during a long residence in our Eastern Empire. 

 For a very faithful sketch of Mr. Atkinson's career in 

 India, the introductory notice at the commencement of 

 the part of the book now under consideration, from the 

 pen of Mr. Arthur Grote, suffices so far as it goes, and 

 nothing is more to be regretted than the melancholy 

 finale. Mr. Atkinson left India on three years' leave, for 

 the purpose of scientifically working out the results of 

 his labours, and died almost suddenly in Italy, before 

 having had time to unpack his stores ; and science lost 

 Vol. xxi. — No. 530 



the benefit of what could not have been otherwise than 

 one of the finest original works on Indian entomology that 

 has appeared, or probably ever will appear. 



The collections remain (but more or less dispersed) : 

 the MS. notes possibly remain also, but they have not 

 been made use of ; the more important personal know- 

 ledge was buried with its possessor. The collections passed 

 nominally into the hands of the late Mr. Hewitson, but 

 the larger and scientifically more important portions 

 ultimately went to Germany. 



So far this notice has been introductory and historical ; 

 it remains to refer more particularly to the book. At the 

 outset nothing strikes one as more to be deplored than 

 that Mr. Atkinson himself could not have recorded the 

 results of his labours. In that case we should, without 

 the slightest doubt, have had a complete list of the species 

 observed by him, with copious biological, and compara- 

 tive faunistic, notes. As it is, we are compelled to put 

 up with a bare mechanical description of the new species, 

 with only a few words on biology, added by Mr. Grote 

 from his long experience in India. The few new butter- 

 flies are described by Mr. Hewitson, and this part 

 was probably the last work done by him, the proofs 

 having been corrected on his death-bed. The far more 

 numerous and more important Heterocera were confided 

 to the care of Mr. Frederic Moore, by Dr. Staudinger 

 of Dresden, who became their possessor. It would have 

 been impossible to find a more competent entomologist 

 for this task ; there is certainly no one who possesses a 

 more exhaustive knowledge of Indian lepidopterous in- 

 sects. We believe Mr. Moore has commenced, and will 

 finish, the undertaking in the most thoroughly conscientious 

 manner, and this first part treats mainly upon the Bom- 

 byces, a group in which North India is superabundantly 

 rich, and which Mr. Moore has very closely studied. 



If, then, we find fault with the work it is not with 

 especial reference to Mr. Moore (its principal author), but 

 rather to the system pursued, one which is especially the 

 attribute of writers on exotic Lepidoptera, and which will 

 continue so long as lepidopterists are without a general 

 and intelligible generic guide. We find numerous species 

 referred to genera as described by Walker, Felder, &c., 

 and new genera based on characters compared with these. 

 We ask, would it be possible for any entomologist to 

 identify a vast majority of Mr. Walker's generic (or 

 specific) descriptions without referring to the types ? and 

 if not, what, from a scientific point of view, is the use of 

 them at all? In the case of Felder (" Reise der Novara ") 

 it is somewhat different, but the importance is equal. Had 

 that author lived there is little doubt that full and com- 

 parative descriptions would have been to hand ; as it is, 

 we have little more than an extensive series of beautiful 

 and accurate figures with names applied to them, or with 

 a few words of diagnosis. If our lepidopterists will con- 

 sent for a few years to an interruption in this interminable 

 and eminently unsatisfactory work of bare " descriptions," 

 and combinedly commence and continue an exhaustive 

 illustrated generic synopsis, they will earn for themselves 

 more fame hereafter than they appear to foresee. Their 

 present system of working only tends daily to render the 

 subject more complicated. 



The plates in Part I. of this work are of the greatest 

 excellence so far as they go, and the colouring appears 



