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" In the Illustrations are descriptions of 7165 species and 1114 genera, a larger number of 

 descriptions (setting aside the mooted question as to the specific identity of the different kinds) 

 than are to be found in the works of any other Entomologist — and of this number nearly 4000 

 are not to be found in any other work; to accomplish so great a task may be termed ' book- 

 making,' or an attempt to illustrate nature, just as folks think. My wishes and labours, re- 

 gardless of expense or time (frequently writing one or two nights in succession ' from dewy eve 

 to rosy morn,' and having my office duties to attend to in the day), and sadly interfering with 

 domestic comforts for many a long year, have been directed to accomplish the latter." 



" I thank you for your offer of assistance, and inclose you a list of a few of my wants, not 

 actual desiderata in the usual acceptation of the term ; but having several plans in progress I 

 require a larger quantity of specimens to illustrate them than for an ordinary Collection. In 

 the first place I am arranging my Collection so as to exhibit all the actual Synonyms where 

 practicable; and, secondly, I am forming a series of separate Collections in illustration of the 

 varies histories of insects, their ravages as affecting agricultural produce, gardens, &c, as also 

 those destructive to furniture, &c, as well as such as are beneficial to mankind. A tolerable 

 long list of impracticabilities I fear at my advanced period of life, but I may be enabled to 

 make some progress which may have its utility. 



" You justly observe that one order is enough for ordinary mortals; nevertheless I have 

 attempted more, and consequently cannot keep pace with those that confine themselves to par- 

 ticular departments. I, however, have managed to pretty well equalize the different orders, 

 and not to be far behind those who have devoted themselves to one only. Unfortunately my 

 health has seriously given way since I have been master of my own time, and I shall, I fear, 

 never be able to collect after my former method : my only chance will be by retiring a little 

 distance into the country, where I can sally out without, the loss of time in going and returning, 

 which is so irksome during a residence in a London suburb. It is this that has prevented me 

 from obtaining many of our common insects during the past summer, as I hoped to have done ; 

 and also — more particularly — to have increased my Collection of the preparatory states, and of 

 injured materials. I look for better days." 



" I thank you for your list of Depressaria, &c, in which I regret to find that you have 

 too rigidly adhered to Zeller, in his wrong application of generic names : e. g. Hcemylis, Z. 

 Now Hcemylis was proposed by Treitschke (for a portion of his rejected genus Plutella) in 

 1832, his type being, according to the accepted custom, T. vaccinella, Hub. — a true Depres- 

 saria ; and the majority of his species being referable to that genus, excepting the last, which 

 is the one in question, and now called Hcemylis by Zeller and yourself. Under these circum- 

 stances the name Hcemylis ought to have fallen, as being almost wholly synonymous with the 

 old English genus Depressaria. Orthotcelia was named (only) by me in my Catalogue in 

 1829 — -years previously in my Cabinet — and characterized in September, 1834, having been 

 figured in May, 1831. Treitschke's genus Acjoniopteryx was characterized in July, 1835, and 

 Duponchel's Caulobius in 1838. Therefore Orthotcelia ought to be the generic name employed, 

 and Hcemylis (as also the others) dropped. I have not yet approached this portion of the 

 subject in the Catalogue of our Lepidoptcra that I am preparing; but I have, so far as I have 

 proceeded, endeavoured to render all the references chronologically exact, and to adopt the 



B 



