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[Illustration PLATE I, Frontispiece. SPRING BUTTERFLIES. Pyrameis Cardui, Linn., ♂ (The Painted Lady); 2. P. Huntera, Fabr., ♂ (Hunter's Butterfly); 3. Grapta Interrogationis, Fabr., ♂ (The Question Sign); 4. Colias Philodice, Godt., ♂; 5. Do., ♀ (The Clouded Sulphur); 6. Vanessa Antiopa, Linn., ♀ (The Mourning Cloak). COPYRIGHTED BY W.J. HOLLAND, 1898]
A POPULAR GUIDE TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE BUTTERFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA
CHANCELLOR OF THE WESTERN UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA; DIRECTOR OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM, PITTSBURGH, PA.; FELLOW OF THE ZOÖLOGICAL AND ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON; MEMBER OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE, ETC., ETC.
WITH 48 PLATES IN COLOR-PHOTOGRAPHY, REPRODUCTIONS OF BUTTERFLIES IN THE AUTHOR'S COLLECTION, AND MANY TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS PRESENTING MOST OF THE SPECIES FOUND IN THE UNITED STATES
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1922
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
TO MY GOOD WIFE AND MY TWO BONNY BOYS, THE COMPANIONS OF MY LEISURE HOURS AND MY VACATION RAMBLES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITHOUT ASKING THEIR PERMISSION
At some time or other in the life of every healthy young person there appears to be developed what has been styled "the collecting mania." Whether this tendency is due to the natural acquisitiveness of the human race, to an innate appreciation of the beautiful and the curious, or to the development of an instinct such as is possessed by the bower-bird, the magpie, and the crow, which have the curious habit of gathering together and storing away trifles which are bright and attractive to the eye, I leave to students of the mind to decide. The fact is patent that there is no village without its youthful enthusiast whose collection of postage-stamps is dear to his heart, and no town in which there are not amateur geologists, archæologists, botanists, and zoölogists, who are eagerly bent upon the formation of collections of such objects as possess an attraction for them.
One of the commonest pursuits of boyhood is the formation of a collection of insects. The career of almost every naturalist of renown has been marked in its early stages by a propensity to collect these lower, yet most interesting and instructive, forms of animal life. Among the insects, because of their beauty, butterflies have always held a foremost place in the regard of the amateur collector. For the lack, however, of suitable instruction in the art of preserving specimens, and, above all, by reason of the almost entire lack of a convenient and well-illustrated manual, enabling the collector to identify, name, and properly classify the collections which he is making, much of the labor expended in this direction in the United States and Canada fails to accomplish more than the furnishing of temporary recreation. It is otherwise in Europe. Manuals, comprehensive in scope, and richly adorned with illustrations of the leading insect forms of Great Britain and the Continent, have been produced in great numbers in recent years in England, France, and Germany. The result is that the youthful collector enters the field in those countries in the possession of a vast advantage over his less fortunate American fellow. It is to meet this want on this side of the Atlantic that this volume has been written. Its aim is to guide the amateur collector in right paths and to prepare him by the intelligent accomplishment of his labors for the enjoyment of still wider and more difficult researches in this and allied fields of human knowledge. The work is confined to the fauna of the continent of North America north of the Rio Grande of Texas. It is essentially popular in its character. Those who seek a more technical treatment must resort to the writings of others.