Pub}. 29. IV. 1929. 
Introduction. 
Agvog nsoovayg nag dvrjg tgvlevetai 
With the completion and publication in 1909 of the volume “The Macrolepidoptera of the World” 
dealing with the palaearctic Rkopalocera everybody was able to classify specimens and collections without 
trouble and without having to wade through a whole library of literature. 
As was to be anticipated numberless specimens were found which as yet were unnamed. The immediate 
result was a flood of new names and descriptions. 
Consequently in the last 20 years we are grateful to record a considerable extension in our knowledge 
of species, forms and aberrations, which is of great value to the science of entomology. It was however 
unavoidable that many hundreds of individual aberrations were named and it is extremely doubtful whether 
any useful scientific purpose is served by increasing the nomenclature in this way. When one considers that 
as many as 40 names have been bestowed on British Vanessa Urticae, twenty on Belgian Apatura Ilia, over 
fifty on the various possible shades of Chrysopkanus Phlaeas, and more than 100 names on one species of 
Parnassius, it must be evident that things are going too far and science is being hindered. The time seems to 
have come when a stricter examination of names is necessary. 
This elimination and discrimination, however, is not the task of our work which is chiefly to be a book 
of reference. The boundary line in nomenclature between that which is necessary, justified, superfluous or 
inadmissible is always difficult to define and probably varies with each individual. If too many details were 
to be gone into this supplementary work would assume such proportions as to become unwieldy. 
In the supplementary part therefore a simplification has taken place in all cases where the naming 
appears to be in direct opposition to the prevailing usages of descriptive science, or where it is due to chance 
variations, whether these be pure chance or whether they have been obtained artificially. It has been found 
however that a distinction must be made between forms for which specific names are justified and those for 
which a special name would be superfluous. This was not done in Volume 1 of this work as there was then 
no urgent reason to do so. The named varieties at that time were so few that in mentioning them the size 
of the volume was scarcely increased. The reader could therefore decide which varieties he thought deserved 
separate names and which did not. The overwhelming number of forms, however, which have now been given 
separate names have indicated the serious consequences which may result if one starts admitting all names 
without consideration as to which are dispensable. 
In many works a great many varieties have been described and even illustrated without names which 
could justifiably have claimed the right to a separate name. We call to mind the innumerable colour and 
marking possibilities described by Oberthur and others occurring for instance in the genus Heliconius in 
America. Of Heliconius Vesta or Tkelxiope for example there are dozens of different illustrations *) each of 
which would be entitled to a name with just as much right as has been claimed for other Rkopalocera in cases 
of slightly broader margins, bands or spots. Such series of types would be possible with a great many tropical 
*) C’h. Oberthur., ktud. d’Entom. 21. 
Supplementary Volume 1 
1 
