European butterflies and moths : based upon Berge's "Schmetterlingsbuch" / based upon Berge's "Schmetterlingsbuch" by W.F. Kirby.

  • William Forsell Kirby
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: European butterflies and moths : based upon Berge's "Schmetterlingsbuch" / based upon Berge's "Schmetterlingsbuch" by W.F. Kirby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. TuE^present work is designed to provide entomologists and tourists with a compre- hensive illustrated guide to the study of European Macro-Lepidoptera, all previous works on the subject (with the exception of a small pocket manual including the Butterflies only, and now nearly out of print) relating solely to British species. After due consideration, it was determined to base the work upon Berge’s “ Schmet- terlingsbuch,” the best and most widely-used German book of this kind, which has already gone through five editions in Germany, and has had the advantage of the successive revision of several eminent entomologists of great experience. The German work being chiefly confined to the species of Central Europe, the plan of the English edition has been extended to include descriptions of the whole of the species inhabiting Europe proper, according to the catalogue published by Staudinger and Wocke in 1871, with additions bringing the subject down to the present time. Large additions have likewise been made to every part of the work, rendering it one of the most complete which has hitherto been published, either in England or on the Continent; and a series of additional plates has been added, in order to illustrate the Macro-Lepidoptera more fully. British species are marked with an asterisk. It has not been thought advisable to give more synonymy than seemed abso- lutely necessary; and English names, which are now but little used, are also only inserted occasionally.