GENERIC NAMES OF BUTTERFLIES 19 



The members of the Scientific Staff of the Department of Entomology at the British 

 Museum (Natural History), with whom my investigations brought me into contact, 

 were uniformly kind and helpful, and I am happy to have this opportunity of 

 expressing to them my grateful thanks. In particular I desire to thank my old 

 friend Mr. N. D. Riley, who during the greater part of the period covered by the 

 preparation of the present work, occupied the position of Keeper of the Department 

 of Entomology, for the unstinted help given by him on numberless occasions on 

 questions relating to individual names or on the writings of particular authors, and 

 for the unfailing interest which he has shown in the progress of the present enter- 

 prise. I would feel it a serious omission also if I did not express my warm feeling of 

 gratitude to two very distinguished workers at the Museum whom death alone has 

 made it impossible for me to thank in any other way. These were Dr. Charles 

 Davies Sherborn, the most learned bibliographer of our time, and Dr. Karl Jordan, 

 who in the course of a long life had acquired unrivalled knowledge of the Lepidoptera 

 and the literature relating to them. 



My grateful thanks are also offered to the Learned Societies to which I have already 

 referred and to the Library ( Mlicials of those Institutions. I am very grateful also to 

 the numerous specialists, both at home and abroad, whom I have consulted at 

 various times and who have most kindly given me the benefit of their views. Where 

 these consultations brought to light valuable new information, the position has been 

 explained in the entry relating to the generic name concerned and my thanks have 

 been expressed to the specialists consulted. 



I wish to give my grateful thanks to Mrs. Joan Newman, who acted as my Personal 

 Assistant in the period 1958-1960. She was of the greatest help to me both in 

 verifying bibliographical references for the names of the type-species of genera and 

 also in undertaking the laborious task of comparing references entered on the cards 

 on which this work was compiled for the purpose of making sure that when a given 

 work was referred to on more than one occasion, the form of abbreviation used in 

 citing the title of that work was always the same. 



There is another matter, quite distinct from the facilities for the study of rare 

 books and serials which were kindly put at my disposal, on which I desire to express 

 my thanks to the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). As has 

 already been explained, the subject matter of the present book is strictly nomen- 

 clatorial save in one particular where taxonomic considerations have been taken into 

 account. This one exception arises in connection with the notes added to the 

 entries relating to certain generic names regarding the taxonomic status currently 

 assigned to the taxa represented by the type-species of the genera concerned. Such 

 notes have been inserted only in those cases where the taxon represented by the 

 nominal species concerned is either subjectively identified with, or is treated as a 

 subspecies of, the taxon represented by some other nominal species bearing a name 

 of older date. The responsibility for the views expressed in these notes rests 

 entirely with myself and in most cases those views represent the conclusions reached 

 by myself from my own knowledge of the taxa concerned and of the literature 

 relating to them. However, in a minority of cases — confined to the type-species of 



