IV. PKEFACE. 



naked eye and the microscope lead to exact knowledge, and that the 

 observer must fight against his life being wasted by the bonds that 

 everywhere stretch out to hold him in leash, if once he is attracted to the 

 excrescences that have grown up around his favourite study. This, then, 

 is the writer's excuse for these preliminary chapters, simple as they may 

 appear, yet comprising most of the facts accumulated by lepidopterists 

 up to the present year of grace.' As bearing on the excellence of the 

 work of the old authors we would suggest that almost the only real 

 piece of observation on the early stages of the " hairstreaks " that we 

 found to be worth quoting, came from Reaumur (Mem., i., pp. 450- 

 454), and was written nearly 180 years ago. We would refer our 

 readers to pages 190-192 of this volume, in order to see Reaumur's 

 masterly account of the silk-spinning, in preparation for pupation, 

 done by the larva of Edwardsia w- album. ; few lepidopterists of the 

 present day have done any observational work that excels this. 



It will be observed that, in this volume, the subject of the symbiotic 

 relation between ants and Lycaenid larvae has been, in many places, 

 dealt with at length. Although known to continental lepidopterists 

 for nearly 130 years, it has only recently been introduced to the notice 

 of British lepidopterists as a detail in the habits of our own " blue " 

 butterfly larva?, by the observations of Mr. A. L. Rayward. This and 

 many other items we may look upon as likely to be worked out at con- 

 siderable length in the immediate future, now that the attention of 

 our native workers has been called thereto. 



The second item is a serious one, but the explanation is simple, 

 viz., that one cannot get a quart into a pint pot. It was intended to 

 deal first with the more generalised Lycaenids or " blues" before the 

 " hairstreaks," but the material for an account of the life-histories of 

 the latter came to hand before the former, and hence a little topsy- 

 turvydom in the arrangement has been the res alt. Up to the time of 

 our working out the life-histories of our British "hairstreaks," the 

 ignorance concerning them was appalling. Newman was obliged to 

 concoct his descriptions of the early stages of Callophrys rubi and 

 Strymon jmnil from Hiibner's somewhat crude figures of larvae and 

 pupae, over a century old ; of Edwardsia w-album an egg evidently 

 of some other species was described, and was coupled with a short note 

 of some twenty-seven half-column lines of the adult larvae and pupae ; 

 whilst his life-histories of Ruralis betidae and Bithys querciis were equally 

 vague and unsatisfactory. Nor did Buckler and Hellins really move 

 matters; a page on the larva and pupa of Callophrys rubiis all that 

 Buckler attempted ; a page also on the larva of Ruralis betidae (no pupa), 

 and two on Bithys querciis are to Hellins' account, and this was all ; 

 whilst of Lampides boeticus, a mistranslation of Milliere's meagre 

 remarks of the larva by Newman, and an account of the larval 

 variation of Celastrina aryiolus, with notes on the egg and pupa by 

 Buckler were all, whilst, in addition, a Tortricid larva seems to have been 

 mistaken for a larva of C. argiolus by this observer, so that practically 

 everything was left to be done de novo, for even Newman regretted his 

 " inability to give, with confidence, any particulars of the life-history 

 of the latter species." Whether our subscribers will be satisfied that we 

 have succeeded in giving them a real history of the species attempted 

 we do not know, but we venture to hope that, with the aid of the 

 excellent photographs, for which we are so much indebted to Messrs. 



