ADVERTISEMENT. 
Since the publication of Boisduval and LeConte’s Lepidopteres de l’Amerique 
Septentrionale, 1833, in which the greater number of Butterflies of the United 
States were described and figured, mostly from the plates of Abbot, there have been 
added to our fauna, and to our knowledge, partly from the enlargement of the 
States and partly from the observations of later naturalists, almost or quite as many 
as were then known. California and the Pacific slope and the Bocky Mountains 
have proved exceedingly rich in species. The same is true of Texas and of the 
northern parts of the continent. And, wherever a lepidopterist has carefully 
collected in the old States, and in localities supposed to have been thoroughly 
worked, new species, many of them conspicuous for size and beauty, have been 
discovered. 
Many Californian species were described by Dr. Boisduval, in the Ann. Soc. 
Ent. de France, none of which have been figured, except two or three in Double- 
day’s Genera. Kirby described and figured a few of the Northern species in his 
Fauna Boreali Amer. in 1837, and many descriptions, with occasionally a plate, 
are scattered through scientific journals and Proceedings of Societies. 
Nearly all the early descriptions are defective in certainty, being too brief, or 
too carelessly written, to enable us to identify the species, often applying to two or 
more as well as one, and often being utterly irrecognisable. Having, from my first 
study of this beautiful family, felt the want of illustrations, I long ago proposed to 
myself to publish a complete work on the Butterflies of North America, when I 
should have amassed sufficient material and could command the leisure necessary 
to such an end. I have the material, but I have not the wished for leisure, and I 
am compelled at present to forego the more ambitious attempt. But to carry out, 
even to a moderate degree, my cherished desire, as well as to enable our lepidopte- 
rists to keep up somewhat with the advance of the study, I propose now to publish 
a sufficient number of new, or hitherto unfigured or disputed, species, to make at 
least a moderate volume, leaving it for the future to decide whether I will continue 
beyond that limit. One number, therefore, containing at least five plates, will be 
