INTRODUCTION. 
69 
specimens, and, in general, kept no record of their 
localities, or natural history properly so called. 
Collections from China and the East Indies were 
indiscriminately mixed, in their wayhomewards, with 
others from the Cape of Good Hope ; and American 
species were in like manner mingled with such as 
are proper to the West Indian islands. Hence it 
followed, that Fabricius and others were so often 
led into error when they indicated the native coun- 
try of the kinds they described : but, indeed, the 
author just named did not very frequently attempt 
this, but merely says, “ From the Indies” — an ex- 
pression which means nothing more explicit, in his 
acceptation of it, than that the species in question 
is exotic. Linnmus, also, when he uses the same 
word, means indiscriminately either the East or 
West Indies. The indications of localities in mo- 
dem works are in general copious and accurate, hut 
they have not hitherto been made the basis of any 
general and satisfactory view of the distribution of 
the species. 
As might be expected in the case of animals en- 
dowed with considerable power of flight, certain 
kinds of diurnal lepidoptcra have a much more ex- 
tensive range than most other insects — than the 
coleoptera for example. It is now ascertained that 
Cynthia cardui, a species well known throughout 
Europe, (without confounding'it, as may sometimes 
have been done, with the kindred species C. Hun- 
teri J, occurs in Senegal, Egypt, Barbary, Cape of 
Good Hope, in the islands of Bourbon and Mada- 
