NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXIII. 19)6. 149 



or three (Rothschild, dryas, pseudodryas and omissus). The conclusion to be drawn 

 from the results of our investigation is obviously this : In order to arrive, without 

 evidence from breeding, at fairly accurate systernatics it is insufficient to study only 

 the external aspect of the specimens. A cataloguer, however, who has to cover the 

 ground at a rapid pace, cannot be expected to spend his time in tedious and minute 

 investigations. That is a matter for a specialist. The scientific study of Lepi- 

 doptera, unfortunately, has not yet arrived at such a state of development that there 

 is a sufficiency of specialists supplementing the army of general lepidopterists. It 

 would therefore be of great advantage if the lepidopterist, after having acquired 

 a general knowledge of the order, concentrated his efforts on a single family or 

 a branch of a family. Here he can do substantial systematic work absolutely 

 necessary for our understanding of nature. If I thus plead for specialisation, I do 

 not wish to say a word against the collector who gathers the specimens for the sake 

 of the pleasure they give him, nor against the lepidopterist who is made happy by 

 the receipt of new species which he can name. Their efforts are a great asset 

 in science, although there have been, and there are still, members of the scientific 

 world who pour cheap satire on them. The very pleasure which the collector 

 derives from the products of nature, and the communion into which he enters with 

 nature when contemplating and comparing the species and pondering over their 

 habits and life-history, are of such high aesthetic value in our neurasthenic times 

 that from this point of view even, quite apart from any incidental contribution to 

 science pure or applied, the occupation with nature's products, should be greatly 

 encouraged in a nation. Who would call it accidental that there are so many more 

 collectors of insects among the truly progressive nations than among the others? 

 I am not pleading against the collector pure and simple, the man who is brought in 

 close touch with nature and is the happier for it. There are, however, many among 

 them who could achieve more, many who have the knowledge, the time and the 

 opportunity. It is the inclination to concentrate their efforts and deepen them 

 which is missing ; and to awaken this inclination wherever it may be dormant 

 and to foster it wherever it has begun to stir, I should, if I could, paint in 

 glowing terms the need for specialisation and a morphological treatment of the 

 Lepidoptera. 



A second point quite clearly demonstrated by the foregoing pages is this : 

 Specimens of the various species, or of most of them at any rate, have been in the 

 hands of lepidopterists and not been recognised as belonging to different species, 

 and I have stated over and over again that the external differences are, in nearly 

 every case here dealt with, quite unreliable. If that is so, could these species be 

 recognised from coloured drawings only ? Certainly not. Therefore the dictum of 

 my friend Charles Oberthilr, that no name is valid which is not accompanied by 

 a good figure, does not cover all cases. If any such proposal could ever be adopted — 

 the proposal certainly draws attention to a weak spot in descriptive entomology, and 

 will exercise a good influence whether officially adopted or not — we must replace 

 " a good figure " by " a figure sufficient for the determination of the species or 

 variety." Such a practice in nomenclature, however, would invalidate many names 

 which are accompanied by " good " figures, these figures not showing any of 

 those details in structure by which alone the particular species can be recognised, 

 structures of which neither the author who named the species nor the artist who 

 made a drawing of it had taken cognizance. 



The differences between the species above described being essentially such 



