Abstract
THE main feature in this beautifully-got-up little book consists in the four coloured plates, which depict forty-five of some of the most charming insects of the family of moths, to which the author has devoted his special attention. The species have all been previously described, but all those who have studied Lepidoptera know that it is often practically impossible to identify these insects from descriptions only, and will feel grateful to Mr. Grote for the help afforded by these plates, which are very beautiful. They will likewise thank him for identifying many of the North American species “described” by Walker, according to the types in the British Museum. This process of identifying Walker's types appears likely to occupy the attention of entomologists at least to the end of the present century. The long introductory “Preface” (which forms more than a third of the entire text, and is paged continuously with it) is open to the suggestion of being too rambling in character, and of containing general matter, and polemics, foreign to the title of the book. The chapter on structure and literature will prove very useful. Here, as in the “Preface,” a want of concentration in the remarks is observable. The supplementary “Colony of Butterflies” is the most successful part of the work from a literary (and perhaps also from a scientific) point of view. A curious butterfly of a genus of boreal proclivities (Œneis semided) inhabits the summit of Mount Washington (in the White Mountains), above an elevation of 5600 feet to the summit (6293 feet), and is there isolated. Naturally this is associated with the glacial theory (and it might find many parallels in the Alps of Europe, &c.), and the author has contrived to give us a very instructive chapter on this subject, but we do not gather how he came to know that the “colony” first settled “about one hundred thousand years ago.”
An Illustrated Essay on the Noctuidœ of North America, with “a Colony of Butterflies.”
By Augustus Radcliffe Grote, A.M., &c. 8vo. (London: Van Voorst, 1882.)
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Our Book Shelf . Nature 26, 500 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026500a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026500a0