Butterflies and Moths: of the British Countryside

LIKE its predecessors in the series, this is a book of identification, not of classification. Its object is to enable the reader to name the specimens he may meet with, so that he may refer more readily to the fuller descriptions in the many other works on the subject, which take it for granted that he is in possession of this knowledge.

It is not so easy as it might appear to be to name a butterfly or moth. The technical nomenclature is in so chaotic a state that though we may know very well what the insect is, we are by no means certain that the name we give it is that under which it will appear in the next book we open. Of late years, however, there has been a tendency towards fixity with regard to the specific names, the generics being as unstable as ever. Hence it is that entomolc-gists have got into a way in everyday life of using the specifics alone; and in comparing other works with this it is recommended. that the specific names should be those first sought for. The popular names afford no guide whatever in identification; they have been applied on no systematic principle, and what with duplications and transpositions, are almost, but not quite, as embarrassing as the generic ones.

Another difficulty lies in the enormous number of ill-defined species and a bewildering overlapping of generalities in description, that no other branch of science can show. The Lepidoptera have suffered severely from the mania for species-making. At least half of the accepted species are of no more relative value than the varieties of the horticulturist; and it would really be to the general advantage if the existing classification were in many cases put down a step, so that the genera became species, and the families genera.

Then a new classification, based on neuration would be possible, and there would be an end to those vague and futile attempts at definition which are now but a source of amusement to everyone but the definer.

The plan of the work will be familiar to those who are acquainted with Our Country's Flowers and Our Country's Birds. In the first chapter is an alphabetical list of most of the popular names of our butterflies and moths with references to the numbers under which they are described. In the next chapter is an index to the specific names on the same principle. The third chapter consists of the systematic list, so that with the first part of the book and the coloured plates, an insect whose name is known can be at once referred to. In the fourth chapter the main points in classification are given, and examples of identification worked out. In the fifth is a guide to the caterpillars of the butterflies. The three concluding chapters consist of the keys by which the groups are sorted into families, the families into genera, and the genera into species.

W. J. G.