PRESS NOTICES OF VOL. II. ix. 



"The second volume of Mr. Tutt's exhaustive work has now appeared, and this continuation 

 merits all the good words which were so freely spent upon the appearance of the first volume. 

 We have first ioo pages devoted to general subjects, such as ' Metamorphosis in Lepidoptera,' 

 and the ' External Morphology of the Lepidopterous Pupa,' &c, and then (pp. 102 — 434) there is 

 such a full account of the Psychides as has not before been published. This is the chief merit of Mr. 

 Tutt's work, that everything that has been written on a species has been consulted ; the original 

 description is given, the synonymy has been exhaustive, all known and many new biological 

 facts are carefully added. The number of pages devoted to a single species is thus far in excess, 

 and the work has so much the more value for consultation. With regard to the Psychides, it seems 

 extraordinary that there should still be so much that is new and yet to be learned about the European 

 members of this difficult group. The author has been careful to give the gist of what has been 

 published in France and Germany, and concludes his study of the British species by a catalogue 

 of the Palaearctic Psychides. Thus there is a broad basis to Mr. Tutt's work, which relieves it 

 from all charge of insularity, and should commend it at the same time to continental students no 

 less than to those everywhere interested in the subject. Pages 434 to the close of the volume are 

 given to the commencement of the Lachneides, and this group is very carefully treated, particular 

 attention being given to Dr. Dyar's studies, while, on plate vii, a phyletic tree is produced from 

 the pen of our American authority. . . . . It is not possible, within the limits of this notice, 

 to enter into questions of detail. Mr. Tutt has generally quoted all opinions upon the intricate 

 question of generic synonymy. Where these have differed, in any one case, then the matter has 



been originally inquired into and a conclusion reached To conclude ; No general 



faunal study is known to the reviewer which can compare with Mr. Tutt's in scope and execution. 

 It is greatly to be hoped that the volumes we now have will be followed by others to the com- 

 pletion of the entire work." — A. R. Grote, M.A,, Canadian Entomologist. November, 1900. 



" It will be remembered that some time ago we noticed (Science Gossip, N.S., vol. vi., p. 275) 

 Mr. J. W. Tutt's first volume of A Natural History of British Lepidoptera. In that volume 

 the author divided his subject into two parts, the first dealing with ' The Origin of the Lepidoptera,' 

 'The Ovum,' 'Embryology,' 'Parthenogenesis,' 'Structure of the Lepidoptera,' 'Variation of 

 the Imagines of Lepidoptera,' ' Protective Coloration and Defensive Structures of the Larvae,' and 

 'Classification.' In the second part was considered 'The Sphingo-Micropterygid Stirps, Sub- 

 families i, ii, iii, and iv,' 'The Micropterygides,' 'The Nepticulides,' 'The Cochlidides,' 

 and ' The Anthrocerides.' The whole volume formed a most valuable treatise, so far as it went, 

 on the order Lepidoptera, although primarily intended for British students. We received in 

 due course the second volume of this work, and regret that various events have delayed an earlier 

 notice of so important a book. Following the plan adopted in vol. i, Mr. Tutt again divided 

 the subjects in the second volume into two parts. The first is occupied by chapters on 

 ' Metamorphosis in Lepidoptera,' ' Incidental Phenomena relating to Metamorphosis,' ' External 

 and Internal Morphology of the Pupa,' and 'The Phylogeny of the Pupa.' The second section is 

 occupied by a continuation of the Sphingo-Micropterygid stirps, the subfamily v, Psychides, and 

 commencement of subfamily vi, Lachneides, occupying the rest of the volume. There cannot be 

 any doubt as to the amount of hard conscientious work put into this second volume by the author. 

 The result is that tho promise indicated in the first volume has been more than fulfilled towards 

 forming a really fine book on the British lepidoptera. Of course, treated as has been the 

 subject by the author, these two volumes by no means exhaust it, and we must expect much more 

 from his pen before an end comes to his labours in this direction. Whilst contemplating the 

 author's task, what he has already done towards it, and the comparatively small leisure he has for 

 this purpose, we are arrested by admiration, if not amazement, at his perseverance and dogged 

 pertinacity. Added to these qualities, so necessary to the successful author, is that of originality, 

 the valuable faculty of arranging the work of others, and, with his own, weaving a plan inde- 

 pendently of previous writers. Such deviation from the beaten track is never popular with the 

 older students of any subject, and especially is this so among the lepidopterologists, the most 

 conservative of naturalists. Yet, in face of all opposition, Mr. Tutt has slowly won for himself 

 the respect deserved by his work ; and, if not the whole of his audience are disciples, he has 

 awakened among them a wider, more scientific, mode of thought and study than has hitherto 

 obtained among them. We all know for how long tbe term ' lepidopterist ' was but a synonym 

 for collector, and how readily the more exact students in some other branches of science sneered 

 at them for ' moth-catchers.' This is now passed, as there has arisen a numerous body of 

 scientific lepidopterologists, of which the author of the volumes before us is the type. They will 

 engender in the rising generation of students of this order, an entirely new system of work, as they 

 realise that the identification and arrangement in cabinet drawers is but the smallest part of the 

 duties of a good entomologist. The first portion of each of the two volumes issued, of Mr. Tutt's 

 work on British lepidoptera, forms an elaborate natural history of earlier stages of the order until 

 we reach the pupa, which is most fully and scientifically considered. Any student following these 

 chapters with thoroughness will have a liberal education upon insect metamorphosis. In 

 addition, he will meet with comparative points, indicating the value of this knowledge, when 

 studying the question of evolution of animals in the wider sense. With regard to the second 

 portion of the volumes, the old arrangement and consideration of the lepidoptera have gone, and 

 gone, we suspect, forever. Whether Mr. Tutt's views are wholly accepted or not, he shows that, 

 with the present wider knowledge of the order in the embrj r onic stages, the old classification, 

 founded on the morphology of the perfect insects, is impossible. Therefore, the reader who will 

 obtain this work must expect to be 'shocked,' if he be an old collector; but the shocking should be 

 for his benefit. In his treatment of subfamily v, the Psychides, we have by far the most 

 comprehensive monograph on them yet written in the English language. Again, repeating our 

 previous statement, the amount of good work done by Mr. Tutt in the 330 pages, devoted to the 

 Psychides is astonishing. It is very pleasing to find the amount of support he has received from 

 all parts of the continents of Europe and America, friends and strangers alike placing most valu- 

 able information at his service. We have thus before us an unravelling of a most complicated 

 subject. Here again will be found a rearrangement of facts of the utmost value in the study of 

 evolution at large. This work is indispensable to all lepidopterists." — John T. Carrington, 

 F.L.S , Science Gossip. December, 1901. 



"The second volume of this important work described by Mr. Merrifield {Entomologist, April, 

 1899), as being, ' in comprehensiveness and fulness of detail on all points of interest to the biolo- 

 gist, the systematist and the collector . . . , without a rival,' has now been published. It 

 consists of 584 closely printed demy octavo pages, on good paper and well-bound in cloth. It has 



