INTRODUCTION. 



A few remarks are perhaps necessary, on some of the names 

 appearing in this list, which have probably no greater right in it, than 

 many, which, although appearing in the lists of Doubleday and 

 others, have been omitted here. 



The names of some butterflies have been expunged from 

 certain British lists because the types are said to be extinct, or the 

 records of their occurrence extremely doubtful, yet these recording 

 lepidopterists so disagree, that no two retain the same specific 

 names throughout their descriptions, in consequence an unqualified 

 list of British Lepidoptera cannot be drawn up. Under such 

 circumstances it is better to retain the names of some doubtful 

 species, rather than circumscribe the usefulness of the list by delet- 

 ing every capture, which has not been re-verified. 



From some attention I have given to the distribution of shore 

 insects, I have charity sufficient to believe, in the possibility of 

 occasional European forms being found on the east and south coasts 

 of Britain. One swallow does not make a summer, neither does 

 an occasional captured butterfly make a new British insect, but as 

 the records of such captures are highly prized by those who study 

 animal distribution, they ought to be encouraged. We allow the 

 ornithologist to interleave his Yarrell with doubtful records without 

 demur, but somehow, the humbler lepidopterist gets but scant 

 Justice, if he proclaims the discovery of a widely distributed 

 European form in Britain. 



I have followed in the arrangement, Mr. W. F. Kirby's 

 " European Butterflies and Moths," as the book is easily accessible, 

 or already in the hands of many collectors, and contains descriptions 

 of types near akin to our own, which the student probably buys 

 in many cases as British. I see no harm in having a collection in 

 which doubtful or extinct British species are replaced by Continental 

 ones, if the replacement leads the student to wider reading and 

 comparison. 



