The text below is grayed out because it is not intended to be read. It is a necessarily imperfect OCR of the original and is only used by a search engine.
50
Reviews
Vol.8: nos.1-2
War II the butterfly auction rooms received a direct hit, but there was such a demand for sales that other premises had to be found. Some individual butterflies, usually striking aberrations, have extended histories at auction. For example, an entirely white Marbled White was caught in 1843 sold the next year for £20, in 1925 for £35, in 1943 for £49, and in 1946 was paired with a melanic specimen and both insects sold as a single item for £110.
Sir WINSTON CHURCHILL is revealed as interested in butterflies to the extent of building a summer house in which to watch the emergence of chrysalides supplied by Mr. NEWMAN and in commissioning the stocking of his estate at Chartwell with butterflies. Besides schools and other educational institutions the Butterfly Farm supplies living specimens for the insect houses of the London and Bristol Zoos. Once the farm filled an order from the New Zealand government for 60,000 pupae of a moth to be used in weed control.
Perhaps the most fascinating story of the book is the account of the efforts to establish a Dutch race of the Large Copper in lieu of the native British race which had been exterminated by over-collecting and reclamation. A reserve was endowed by the Hon. CHARLES ROTHSCHILD; the area was planted with the food plant; wardens were posted; and the stock secured. After twenty years the colony survives.
JAMES R. Merritt, School of Law, University of Louisville, Louisville 8, Ky., U. S. A.
MICROLEPIDOPTERA OF NEW GUINEA. Results of the Third Archbold Expedition (American-Netherlands Indian Expedition 1938-1939). Part II. By A. Diakonoff. V erhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Na-tuurkunde, 2nd ser., vol. 49, No. 3: pp. (1) — 166, figs. 209-372. Amsterdam, 1953.
The present paper is the second part of the distinguished work on the Microlepid-optera of New Guinea of which Part I was recently reviewed in The Lepidopterists' News (vol. 7: p. 128; 1953).
This paper brings descriptions and records of Tortricidae, subfamilies Tortricinae (conclusion) and Eucosminae. Thirteen genera and 106 species are described as new. This high number of new species is the more remarkable in view of the fact that the records of the Archbold Expedition reported in the second part of the work include in all only seven of the already known species.
As in Part I, keys to Papuan species are given us. The preliminary key to the Tortricinae genera is replaced by a definitive one. The illustrations (164 figures) are very accurate. The paper concludes with addenda and corrigenda to its preceding part; seventeen New Guinean species and two genera described by the author in the Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, ser. C, vol. 55, 1952, are listed.
The most amazing of the new genera are undoubtedly Arctephora (Generotype: A. iubata spec, nova) and Nikolaia (Generotype: N. melanopsygma spec, nova) both monobasic and ranked by the author in the subfamily Tortricinae. These genera having a haired cubitus of the hind wing, a feature very unusual among the Tortricinae, can provide a basis for radical changes in modern views on the classification of the family Tortricidae in general. It would therefore be advisable for the author to publish enlarged photographs or drawings of species, generotypes of both the new genera, and a detailed morphological comparison of their haired cubitus with the cubital pecten of Sparganothinae and Olethreutinae (=Eucosminae in the paper under review).
As for the new taxonomic views of the author, a consideration of the genus Cryptophlebia Wlsm. being a synonym for Pseudogalleria Rag. is especially interesting. The referring of the new species my odes to the Nearctic genus Sereda Heinr. is in the mind of the reviewer very problematic because the genitalia of the new species were not studied by the author. (The abdomen of the unique male type was missing.)
In a letter to the reviewer, the author wrote about that publication of Part III of his work is expected this year, and that Part IV had been submitted to the editor for printing. It is hoped that the author may soon complete the whole work, whose successive parts will be reviewed as they appear.
Nicholas S. Obraztov, 11 Cromwell Place, Sea Cliff, Long Island, N.Y., U.S.A.