PREFACE 



In 1893, Ragonot published his first Volume on tlie Phycids and 

 from that time till his death, in 1895, though niucli interrupted by 

 illness, he continued to work at the préparation of Ihe second Volume 

 which was to complète the account of the Phycids and also contain the 

 classification of the Anerastids and Gallerids. By his death, students of 

 the Lepidoptera suffered a very great loss and his most careful work on 

 the Pyralidae was brought to an untimely end. 



Madame Ragonot, however, determining that his second Volume in 

 the Romanoff's Mémoires should, if possible, be completed and the 

 great amount of labour her husband liad spent on it not be wasted, 

 appealed to me to assist in finishing it; this I agreed to, to the best of 

 my ability, for though I had made no long study of the group such as 

 Ragonot had, yet I had done a certain amount of work at it both in 

 arranging the British Muséum collection of the species conlained in 

 Ragonot's first Volume and in working out the Indian species for the 

 Fauna of the British India, so that I had some preliminary knowledge 

 of the subject. Having obtained the consent of the authorities of the 

 British Muséum, the m. s. of the volume was sent to me in London. I 

 found that the gênerai scheme of the Volume was complète; there were 

 tables of the gênera in each of the groups and lists of the species falling 

 under each genus, but in very many cases the descriptions of the 

 species were not written, being merely represented by their names 

 written at the head of blank sheets, and besides this there were many 

 described species which had not yet been examined by Ragonot. Having 



