1893.] ME. E. T. AVATSOX ON THE HESPEEIIDJ). 5 



importance to Scuckler's Hesperidi and Pamphilid'i, this latter being 

 an alteration already suggested by Scuddt-r himself. 



Passing by the arrangement of Plotz, which, being based largely 

 on the pattern of the wings, has been found quite unworkable, and 

 that of Distant, which was a tentative one only intended to be ai)plied 

 to the fauna then under consideration, we come to a valuable paper ' 

 by Speyer on the " Genera of the Hesperiidse of the European 

 Fauna." In this paper he makes a suggestion which has been found 

 of the very greatest importance in the classification of the genera ; 

 tin's suggestion was to the effect that the position of vein .5 of the 

 (ore wing in relation with veins 6 and 4 would probably prove a 

 character of value. This surmise has proved to be correct, and the 

 position of vein .) has been found of great use in the arrangement of 

 the Hesperiidae, as it has already proved to be for the division of 

 the Heterocera into two large groups of families. 



In the following arrangement it has been attemj)ted to make 

 mention of every generic name published prior to iy92, and to point 

 out its type species, though, where this species has not been acces- 

 sible, it has not been possible in most cases to assign the genus to 

 its correct position. This is in great part owing to the very super- 

 ficial manner in which some, even recent, authors characterize their 

 genera, in many cases doiug no more than specifying the species 

 they propose as their type, so that when one is not in possession of 

 that particular species the genus is quite unrecognizable. 



Whenever no particular species has been designated by the author 

 of a genus as his type of that genus, it has been found most satis- 

 factory to (blluw Scudder's ' Historical Sketch of the Genera of 

 Butterflies,' published in 1875, as in that work he has investigated 

 the history of the genera from the earliest authors, and has fixed 

 the types in accordaiice with the strictest rules of priority, and there- 

 fore in the opinion of the writer his decisions should be accepted by 

 all subsequent authors, who will thus have a sound basis to start 

 from, and a uniform system would result instead of the chaos which 

 is caused by each author arbitrarily fixing the tyj)e of the genera of 

 i-arlier authors on a system of his own. 



The decisions of Mr. Scudder have therefore been accepted for 

 all genera included in the above-quoted work ; while for those 

 genera wliich have been descril)ed subsequently, when no type has 

 been specified, that species has been taken which best agrees with the 

 diagnosis of tlie genus. In the great majority of genera it has been 

 found practicable to clear the wings of a spt-ciinen of the typical 

 species, wheieby its diagnosis has been considerably facilitated. 



In all, 234 generic names have been dealt with, of which 4!) are 

 sunk as synonyms, while A^) new genera have been described, and 

 at least as many more await description in Britisli collections 

 alone. 



A> in the British .Museum collection the two genera Meyatkym- 

 nus and jEyicde are arranged in the Heterocera, they are not in- 

 cluded below, though some authors consider they should be treated 



' Stctt. cnt. Zeit. vol. xl. p, 477 et seq. (1879). 



