VI 
PREFACE. 
our knowledge of the African Fauna. It is a deplorable fact that this was to be the last great work of this 
uncommonly industrious, conscientious and expert naturalist. Very soon after the completion of this chapter 
the explorer’s life full of work and success was ended. 
The style and arrangement of the 14th Volume is cpiite conformable to that of the other volumes. In 
order that its completion was not postponed to an uncertain period, the elaboration had to be strictly confined 
to the limits prescribed for the entire work. In spite of all the explanations in the Prefaces to preceding volumes, 
the gaps and omissions in the “Macrolepidoptera”, which had to be left unconsidered merely because it was 
beyond the task set in this work, have been criticized again and again. It has always been stated that it is 
cpiite impossible to examine all the newly introduced forms, whether they are any vicarious form, a race, a 
season-form, a specific branch, or a casual aberration allied to other forms. Hardly any division contains such 
a great number of unique forms as the Central African Bombyces, and the valuation of numerous uncertain 
forms must be left to monographies here more than in any other group, because the present material at our 
disposal is not yet sufficient. As long as there are not similar series of specimens available from Central Africa 
as those of our home species, any attempts to apply here also the very latest results of racial researches would, 
in our opinion, be cpiite hopeless. Such attempts can at any rate not be intended in a work which comprises 
the whole of the macrolepidoptera of the world and is to deal with this gigantic material, without obstructing 
the access of the collectors in general by boundless series of volumes. 
More than 3000 figures have been supplied on 80 pages. As the 14th volume was only begun in the 
course of the year 1926, nearly all the plates have participated in the latest technical achievements, whereby 
a more uniform production and increased neatness of all the plates was obtained. We do not pretend, of course, 
that all the figures are unequalled or altogether excellent. Considering the great number of unique forms 
contained in this volume it was often necessary to work according to water-colour sketches remitted to us, 
and their eventual inaccuracies had of course to be copied in this work. But as in the other volumes of the work 
we have preferred to supply figures wherever it was possible. In doing so we accomodated ourselves to the 
fact that, as a rule, imperfect figures also give a better idea than short descriptions which are supported by 
comparative illustrations. However far behind the technique of the hand-colouring of old illustrated works 
appeared, the misconstruction of even moderately figured species in literature forms an insignificant percentage 
of the errors made even up to this day concerning old descriptions — I refer to Walker, Fabricius, even 
Linne. A great number of such diagnoses are definitely useless or ambiguous, and the others have mostly only 
become determinable by the painstaking discovery of the types. As one single plate with an average number 
of 38 figures supplies a much better survey than a dozen pages of thoroughly accomplished text, it is the question 
of space itself that makes the extensive and abundant illustration of our work absolutely necessary. Only by 
supplying numerous figures the shortness of text is attainable, which is imposed on the work by the abundance 
of the material. 
That is also why I have to retort most emphatically on a conception which has recently often appeared 
about the illustration of the whole work. It has been attempted to define the work - in disregard to the text 
- to be merely an illustrative work similar to those that were the custom in earlier times when our knowledge 
of exotic insects was confined to the exploration of mummies. And there were even opinions to be heard, 
according to which the entire arrangement of the work was declared to be a concession to indolence and a 
danger to intellectual decline. If there are really any entomologists who would have preferred the supply of 
exhaustive descriptions instead of single distinctly prominent marks, such criticizers ought once to consider 
to what end such a proceeding would have led. One printed page of circumstantial description often fails to 
suffice in complicatedlv marked forms to inform the readers of what is frequently exhibited by a tiny figure. 
The way such descriptions would have to be worded, so as to be compressed into the admitted average space 
of 3 or 4 lines per form, remains quite incomprehensible to us. We have therefore preferred to offer something 
of the little knowledge about the range, life-habits, the capturing and breeding of the species dealt with, and if 
the morphology has been confined in this work to some obvious differences in the neuration, hairiness, and in 
externally visible marks of the parts of the body, this may be substantiated by the fact that statements of 
more complicated marks must remain the task of monographies and that a compendium of such vast contents 
is only to provide results Imt not the details by which they have been obtained. 
Opinions may of course differ as to whether the method of elaborating this work are serviceable, still 
I herewith beg to express my sincerest thanks to the collaborators of this work, too, for having so kindly 
accomodated themselves to the proposals and desires of the editor. It is only by the harmonious co-operation 
of all those participating in the production of the total work that a rapid progress and the uniformity of the 
