D2 
alludes to these drawings. The purpose of their presence in the 
“ Handbook” is therefore unexplained. 
In the Geometridz a series of figures have been given by Mr. 
Meyrick in the “ Transactions of the London Entomological Society,” 
in which an additional internal, short, downwardly curved vein is 
given on the fore-wings which I cannot find in nature. ‘This vein 1s, 
moreover, omitted from a number of the drawings of the neuration 
of Geometridz in the Handbook. Further than this, the short vein 
VIII, which forms a loop to VII at the base of the wing, is figured 
by dots, which should indicate a scar or fold. But in nature I find 
instead a true tubular vein. Relying upon Mr. Meyrick’s figures, I 
had supposed a possible relation between the Parnasst-Papilionide 
and the Geometride, which I must now consider illusory after exa- 
mining the neuration of the latter group myself. 
It may be said that other authors make similar mistakes, that 
Spuler, for instance, in his ‘‘ Inaugural Dissertation,” Taf. xxv, fig. 25 a, 
contrives to insert an entire extra branch running to the external 
margin of the fore-wings of /rer7s drassice. It may be said that 
Mr. Meyrick’s fantastic and unreasonable general arrangement of the 
order, his meagre diagnoses, his unexplained nomenclature, with its 
absence of types and dates, his arbitrary phylogeny, may be matched 
(though I doubt it) elsewhere. Finally, the critic may be met with the 
commonplace, Quot homines tot sententie. But almost anyone will 
readily follow me here ; no other writer has ventured before the public 
with such a preface to such a book. In this Mr. Meyrick applies 
the ill-sounding adjective of ‘‘pseudo-scientific” to the mainly de- 
scriptive work of the late M. Guenée. Much more than to the work 
of this well-meaning and industrious writer might this wrongly used 
term apply to the publications of Mr. Meyrick, with their incorrect 
figures and unfounded, dogmatically worded conclusions. For what 
M. Guenée gave was vea/, not false science, and may readily be seen 
to have been useful and even necessary. The ‘‘Spécies Général” is the 
beginning—it may be considered the feeble beginning—of a descrip- 
tive work upon the butterflies of the world, and it requires a 
singular want of insight in the progress of lepidopterology not to 
recognise this merit. Aea/ science Guenée gave us, although it may 
not always be science of the first order. For this, indeed, we have 
no lack of modern authorities, and we can quite afford to leave 
M. Guenée in his little niche in the temple of fame unbesmirched. 
One difference between M. Guenée and Mr. Meyrick Hes in this, that 
in Azs preface the French author modestly apologises for the failings of 
his book, which he finds much less perfect than he had allowed 
himself to dream ; while in Azs preface Mr. Meyrick finds no room 
for any such regret. More than this, Mr. Meyrick ventures upon the 
remark that “it is perhaps not very creditable to British lepidopterists 
that so little progress should have been made meanwhile in this direc- 
tion,” z.e. between the publication of “‘ The Origin of Species” and 
the appearance of Mr. Meyrick’s “Handbook.” And then Mr. 
. 
