90 



an aberration of Pyrameis cardui, from Graham's Town, 

 South Africa, identical in its bizarre pattern with one taken 

 in this country, and figured by Newman in his " British 

 Butterflies," p. 64 ; and recently in a fine collection of 

 moths from the Amur district, in the possession of Mr. P. 

 Crowley, I saw a specimen of Spilarctia lutea, Hufn., var. 

 zatinia, Stoll (lubricipeda, Auct.). 



In the first instance, the same aberration occurred 51° 

 north and about 30° south of the equator ; the second was 

 found here in England nearly in the longitude of Greenwich, 

 and also in Asia beyond 130° east longitude. Stoll, who 

 first described the variety Pap. Ex. iv, p. 182, t. 381 F, writes 

 that it had been taken at Surinam, and in the Barronie de 

 Breda. I am inclined to think that the South American 

 habitat given arose in some mistake, it is scarcely likely to be 

 found in the tropics. 



The student of the Lepidoptera-Rhopalocera has had great 

 cause to thank Mr. W. F. Kirby for the assistance given him 

 by the publication in 1871 of his Synonymic Catalogue of 

 the Diurnal Lepidoptera, followed by a supplement in 1877. 

 This index of indices has aided the study of that sub-order 

 incalculably : one fails to realize how the student could have 

 worked without its help. It is, therefore, with the greatest 

 satisfaction that the first volume of a like catalogue of the 

 Lepidoptera-Heterocera, which has been published, has been 

 welcomed. 



Few persons have any idea of the amount of labour, or 

 rather drudgery the production of such a work entails. A 

 friend of mine, who, dealing with a different subject, pre- 

 pared a catalogue, told me that a single line had sometimes 

 taken a week's work to prepare. Mr. Kirby states that he 

 has had the catalogue, of which the first volume is now pub- 

 lished, twenty years in hand. 



It becomes a duty for all those who can afford the expense to 

 purchase Mr. Kirby's invaluable book ; the more so as the pub- 

 lication of the four volumes necessary to complete the work 

 depends in part on the support he receives from entomologists. 

 The perusal of such a list of species expands one's ideas ; and 

 the necessity for more genera, than a small indigenous fauna 

 would suggest, becomes apparent. Take, for instance, 

 Stephens' genus Spilosoma. This is left with twenty species, 

 after fifty-four have been separated by Mr. Butler, and placed 

 in the genus Spilarctia. Of course, Mr. Kirby in his work 

 restores the two genera of Stephens' Diapliora for D. mendica 

 and Phragiuatobia for P. fuliginosa. These, by a retrograde 



