1896.] BUTTBEFLIES OP THB FAMILX HESPEBIIDJ:. 3 



precious types of Hewitson and other great naturalists, who have 

 placed their collections in the care of the institution. 



In following up my labours I have been greatly aided by the 

 possession of a large mass of well determined Indian material, 

 which I have been accumulating for many years past, and particu- 

 larly by the possession of the Knyvett collection, for which I am 

 indebted to the generous kindness of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, my 

 distinguished fellow-townsman, whose interest in all things relating 

 to the advancement of science is well known. I have derived 

 much assistance from the collections which I have received from 

 Mr. William Doherty, the well-known naturalist explorer of the 

 far East, and from the collections for which I am indebted to Mr. 

 L. de Niceville, of Calcutta, whose great work upon the Lepidoptera 

 of India is a monument to his painstaking diligence and scientific 

 acumen. I am no less indebted to Mr. Eoland Trimen, the late 

 learned Curator of the South- African Museum at Capetown, whose 

 labours upon the fauna of extra-tropical Africa are classic, and who 

 with the most engaging kindness has presented me with authenti- 

 cally determined specimens of most of the species named by him. 

 It is much to be wished that all authors might acquire those habits 

 of exact observation and clear description which are possessed by 

 this Nestor among Ibpidopterists, whose diagnoses of the various 

 species contained in his last work upon the Butterflies of South 

 Africa are so exact as almost to make the work of pictorial repre- 

 sentation superfluous. I am under very special obhgationg to the 

 authorities of the British Natural History Museum not only for 

 permission to fi-eely study the collections in their possession, but 

 for permission to have drawings made of the hitherto unpublished 

 types of the late Mr. Hewitson and of Dr. Butler. 1 have to 

 thank Dr. Karsch of the Berlin Museum, and Dr. llogenhoFer of 

 the Imperial Museum at Vienna, for similar kindnesses. From 

 Mons. Mabille of Paris I have received most distinguished 

 courtesies, and I am indebted to him for the opportunity to ex- 

 amine personally the types of many of his recently described species, 

 and for the use of a number of copies of the unpubUshed figures of 

 Ploetz. Ploetz made no collection of specimens during his lifetime, 

 but contented himself with making drawings, not always very 

 accurate, of the species which he described in the collection of 

 others, or which he found figured in various works. These figures 

 are in many cases our only safe clue to a knowledge of the species 

 he named, for his descriptions are in mauy instances very unsatis- 

 factory. I cannot fail in this connection to express my indebtedness 

 to Lieut. Watson, who compared mauy of the species in my 

 collection with the types in the British Museum, and assigned 

 them to the respective genera to which they belong in his classi- 

 fication, and to Dr. Butler and Mr. Herbert Druce for their 

 generous assistance at all times freely given. Among American 

 entomologists, I am especially indebted to Dr. S. H. Scudder of 

 Cambridge, who, upon the occasion of his last visit to Europe, did 

 me the great favour of comparing a series of drawings of the species 



