Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/83

Rh Treitschke, in their valuable and extensive work on the Lepidoptera of Europe.

But there can be little doubt that those arrangements are the most accurate and philosophical which are founded on characters derived from all the different states in which these insects exist. This conviction seems now to be generally entertained, and most writers of very recent date have seen the propriety of acting upon it. In the works of Curtis, Stephens, Horsfield, &c. it has been adhered to to a greater or less extent, and in a general work on Lepidoptera lately published by Dr. Boisduval of Paris, nearly equal importance is assigned to the peculiarities of the caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. As this method presents some new features, and is the last that has been laid before the public, we shall give an account of it along with the accompanying remarks in the author's own words:—"It is not till after a most attentive study of the butterflies of Europe in their different states, and after having collected a certain number of materials on the metamorphoses of exotic species, that we have attempted to group the lepidoptera in a manner different from that hitherto followed, not neglecting, at the same time, the study of those authors who have occupied themselves with this order, that we might be enabled to combine the results of their labours with our own. We do not flatter