25 
present requisitioned—shall I say “ commandeered ? as a staff of 
departmental specialists to collaborate with the author, and the ground 
hereby cleared for the workers of the future, in order that their efforts 
may be profitably directed. Into the very difficult and debateable 
question as to whether and how these advantages of thoroughness could 
be retained without such an enormous expenditure of time and space, 
the present is not the occasion to enter; but we shall concur in heartily 
wishing the author long life and health in order that he may enrich 
our literature with many volumes elucidating the relationships, the 
life-histories, the distribution, and the many other matters of interest 
in the study, of our indigenous lepidoptera. 
Passing by other books which would have deserved mention had 
time allowed, I will dwell for a moment on one or two topics suggested 
by a consideration of the book which we have just had under our notice. 
I have remarked that it deals with our indigenous lepidoptera. This is 
not, I need hardly remind you, due to any narrow insularity on the 
part of the writer, but altogether to circumstances beyond his control; 
and he has without doubt more than once felt the inconvenience of the 
limitation. Indeed, he has done as much as was possible under the 
circumstances to introduce us to the kindred forms of other lands. 
Not so very many years ago, I might have needed to admonish, or even 
reprove, a Society such as the “City of London Entomological” in 
connection with this subject of insular prejudice; but when I call to 
mind the general nature of our exhibits during the last few years, I 
feel that criticism is almost entirely disarmed, and I need hardly do 
more than state my conviction that in this respect “ the former days 
were ” not “ better than these,” but that a cosmopolitan view of our 
position as naturalists is the one that is most worthy of us, and that, 
though a stern necessity may prevent many of us from making 
acquaintance with extra-British species in their native haunts, yet an 
interest in them will greatly increase and render more intelligent and 
more profitable, our interest in our native forms. 
A matter of very great importance in connection with such books 
as this of Mr. Tutt’s, is that there shall be ample references to the 
sources of information, whether previously published or received by the 
author from private sources. Mr. Bateson, in reviewing volume ii of 
British Lepidoptera in the Entomologist's Record has urged the 
necessity of this, and after my remarks on bibliographical work in 
general, it is superfluous for me to add how thoroughly I agree with 
this. Even in the few years during which I have been engaged in 
bibliographical research, I have lost many precious hours in quest of 
the source of some incomplete reference or allusion, and have some¬ 
times in the end come to the conclusion that it was merely in 
manuscript. I think it will be found practicable in later volumes to 
supply this deficiency without adding to the bulk of the book ; I need 
not now go into details, but I may remind writers that such abbrevia¬ 
tions as l.c. ( loc . cit.), i.l .'{in litt.), &c., do not take much time nor 
trouble even though they should need to be repeated many times. 
Turning from writing to writers, I cannot refrain, as a lepi- 
dopterist, from alluding to the double loss sustained by us during the 
year in the deaths of Dr. Otto Staudinger and Dr. Ottmar Hofmann, 
both prominent figures in the entomological world for nearly half a 
century, each indeed, in his own particular department, an acknow- 
