50 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



"The Butterflies of Maine," published by Prof. C. H. Femald in 1884, is an 

 excellent pamphlet of 104 pages, describing the sixty-nine butterflies known to have 

 betn taken in Maine. It contains an accentuated list of the scientific names and the 

 principal "common" names which have been given, and there is also an artificial key for 

 the determination of the butterflies. There are no plates but there are thirty five wood- 

 cuts illustrating a number of the species in one or more stages. 



For the Sphingidae, the most important work is Prof. J. B. Smith's Monograph, 

 published in Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. XV., 1888, and obtainable separately at $2. This 

 work extends to nearly 200 pages and is very exhaustive in its treatment. There are 

 ten plates, eight devoted chiefly to the genital armature and two chiefly to venation, but 

 there are no figures of specks. About 30 pages are devoted to tracing the classification 

 •of the group from the time of Linnaeus in 1758 down to the publication of this mono- 

 graph in 1888. The preparatory stages are not described, but where known may be 

 found from the references, which ar6 very complete. This, however, has the disadvan- 

 tage of compelling the hunting up of these descriptions in other works, which one may 

 be unable to do if a complete entomological library is nob within reach. 



" The Sphingidae of New England," published in 1886 by Prof. Femald, is an excel- 

 lent pamphlet of eighty-five pages and six plates, illustrating ten species, with the larva 

 or larva and pupa of most of them. Forty-two species are described, and there is an 

 analytical key and the scientific names are all accentuated and the work is on similar 

 lines to the same author's "Butterflies of Maine." 



"Descriptive Catalogue of the Sphingidae found within fifty miles of New York,' 

 by Wm. Beutenmuller, is another excellent work on the same plan as his work on the but- 

 terflies. It consists of forty-six pages and six plates, which figure forty-two species, while 

 forty-six altogether are described in the text. With such a work no one should have 

 any difficulty in determining his specimens. This work was published in the Bulletin 

 of the American Museum of Natural History, and except for the few author's sep- 

 arates is unfortunately only accessible to those able to consult this work. 



For the groups intervening between the Sphingidae and the Geometridae there is as 

 yet unfortunately no approximately complete work, nor indeed any work other than 

 check list or catalogue at a moderate price. 



In July, 1872, Mr. R, H. Stretch undertook the publication of a work entitled 

 <( Illustrations of the Zygaenidae and Bombycida; of North America." It was to be issued 

 in parts, each of which was to contain a coloured plate. The work was intended to ex- 

 tend to thirty parts at $1 each, or with plain plates 75c. each. The genera and species 

 were not taken up in consecutive order but irregularly as specimens could be obtained, 

 and as the work was discontinued after the issue of the ninth part, with which the author 

 closed his first volume, it is very incomplete, and while rather costly in the first instance 

 has become more so from its comparative rarity. 



Dr. Packard has begun the publication of a sumptuous work, " A Monograph of the 

 Bombycine Moths of America, north of Mexico." The first volume, which is all which 

 has so far appeared, treats of the Notodontidae, and costs $15 in paper covers, or $16 

 bound in cloth, and is, therefore, a costly .work. The part already issued is a quarto 

 volume of 291 pages with forty-nine plates, ten maps and eighty-five cuts. Of the plates 

 seven are of the moths, one being coloured and the others done by the heliotype process, 

 thirty which are coloured illustrate the larvae with great fulness of detail, ten are devoted 

 to venation, one to other structural details, and one to three moths with the larvae of two 

 of them. 



The eggs and cocoons or pupae are not illustrated on the plates, but a number of 

 pupae are illustrated in the introductory part of the work. 



For the Geometridae the monumental "Monograph" of Dr. Packard, published by the 

 United States Government as one of the volumes of its geological survey of the terri- 

 tories, should be in the hands of every lepidopterist who can afford the very moderate 

 price, $4 I believe, at which it is, I suppose, still obtainable. 



