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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
as this would be folly. I did find a couple of minor errors while conducting my research. For example, Poole states that the primary type of Paectes delineata is in the BMNH, London, whereas Mr. Martin R. Honey (in litt, 1989) states that the type is not at the Natural History Museum. In another situation, Poole omits the fact that Agrotis texanus is a synonym of Agrotis segetum.
Poole's Noctuidae should be an important part of any serious lepidopterist's resources, not only as a check list, but also as a bibliography and as an example of how such a work should be prepared. Although the high price may limit individual purchases, library copies should be available. Poole should be thanked by the entire Lepidoptera community for successfully completing this monumental work.
Eric H. Metzler, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 1952 Belcher Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43224.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 45(2), 1991, 178-179
Catalogue of Family-Group and Genus-Group Names (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera), by Charles A. Bridges. 1988 (2nd ed.). Published and distributed by the author, 502 W. Main Street, Apt. 308, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. 390 pp.: vi; ii + 8 (I); ii + 3 (II); ii + 4 (III); ii + 141 (IV); ii + 33 (V); ii + 68 (VI); ii + 18 (VII); ii + 61 (VIII); ii + 20 (IX); ii + 8 (X). Hard cover, 22 x 28.5 cm, no ISBN, $60.00 in North America, $62.50 elsewhere (postpaid).
Catalogue of Papilionidae & Pieridae (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera), by Charles A. Bridges. 1988. Published and distributed bv the author, 502 W. Main Street, Apt. 308, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. 737 pp.: vii; ii + 324 (I); ii + 93 (II); ii + 131 (III); ii + 98 (IV); ii + 37 (V); ii + 12 (VI); ii + 1 (Al); ii + 4 (A2); plus 14 pp. of appended annotations. Hard cover, 22 x 28 cm, no ISBN, $85.00 in North America, $87.50 elsewhere (postpaid).
Charles Bridges has embarked on a monumental task: that of assembling all published names of butterflies and skippers, evaluating their status, and publishing them with supporting documentation in a series of cross-referenced catalogs. To date, five volumes have been published: three treat species-group names, one treats family and generic names, and the fifth is a bibliography. All five volumes are sturdily bound in hard cover and are printed on 8% x 11 inch paper.
The two volumes reviewed here treat, respectively, names used in the higher classification of butterflies and skippers, and the names of species, subspecies, varieties, and forms in two families of butterflies: Papilionidae and Pieridae. Previously reviewed in the fournal of the Lepidopterists' Society are Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae. Notes on Species-Group Names (1983; reviewed by Lee D. Miller in JLS 39:51, 1985) and Catalogue of Lycaenidae ir Riodinidae (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera) (1988; reviewed by Donald J. Harvey in JLS 43:250-251, 1989). The Hesperiidae volume has been revised and the second edition was published in 1988 as Catalogue of Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera), a 6-part compendium of 461 pages that treats 9327 species-group names (it is available in hard cover from the author for $70.00 in North America and $72.50 elsewhere, postpaid). That leaves the nymphalids as the only group not yet covered. Bridges is working on a catalog of the huge superf amily Nymphaloidea, but its completion is years away.
The fifth published volume in this series is the Bibliography (576 pages; $75.00 in North America and $77.50 elsewhere, postpaid), which lists 19,407 publications and is the most comprehensive compilation of butterfly literature published in this century. Even so, Bridges is the first to admit its shortcomings—it is not exhaustive (it was compiled by listing every paper Bridges encountered during his work on the other four volumes, and thus it leaves out much of the literature on the Nymphaloidea and is heavily biased toward taxonomic papers) and it has never been rigorously edited (resulting in quite a few errors and duplications).
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The four volumes treating names all carry the caveat: "The arrangement of the names is based entirely on bibliographic references. No specimens have been examined, and no new names are introduced." Clearly, these volumes are meant to be references to aid the taxonomist and are not intended to be revisionary works themselves. One might say that their purpose is to Bridge the gap between taxonomists and the butterfly literature. However, they contain much more than simple listings of names and references. Using the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature as his guide, Bridges has coded all names as to their nomenclatural status (available or unavailable, objectively valid or invalid) and has assembled synonymic lists of taxa. In the Catalogue of Family-Group and Genus-Group Names, Bridges even designates type species for three genera: Idmais Lucas, 1836; Odontasama Aurivillius, 1929; and Thymele [Iliger], 1837. It is the care that Bridges has taken in organizing this vast array of complex information that makes these volumes so accessible and useful.
Each volume has a brief introductory section that describes its contents, methodology, and data base, and which includes a fascinating table that lists the number of names published in each five-year period since 1758 (the date of publication of the 10th edition of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae, recognized as the starting point of zoological nomenclature). These chronological numerical summaries are broken down by status (availability, validity, etc.), providing insight into the dynamics and complexity of taxonomic activity over the past two centuries.
The Catalogue of Family-Group and Genus-Group Names has ten parts, paginated separately, that are grouped into three major sections: family-group names (Parts I—III), genus-group names (Parts IV-VII), and bibliography (Parts VIII-X). Each Part has its own brief introduction and a list of abbreviations used. Part I is an alphabetic list of the type genera of the family-group names; different fonts are used to indicate valid, invalid, and unavailable names. Part II is a synonymic list of 362 family-group names, including superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, and subtribe designations. Part III is an index to the authors and literature of family-group names. In the Genus Group section, Part IV lists 4190 genus names alphabetically and gives the reference of the original description, the type methodology, the type species, taxonomic status (1540 names are invalid or unavailable), and higher classification. Part V is a synonymic list, Part VI is an index to authors and bibliography, and Part VII is an index to type-species. The Bibliography section contains a list of 2270 references arranged alphabetically by author (Part VII), an index to Journals and Serials (Part IX), and an index to year of publication (Part X).
The Catalogue of Papilionidae & Pieridae is formatted like the catalogs treating Hesperiidae and Lycaenidae & Riodinidae. Following the Introduction, there are six Parts, paginated separately. Part I is an alphabetic list of 14,117 names, with data on authorship, year and place of original publication, current usage, location of type specimens, type locality, references, and occasional brief notes. Part II is a synonymic list of names. Part HI is a list of the names arranged by author and publication, and serves as an index to the bibliography. Part IV is the bibliography, listing 4330 publications. Part V is an index to the bibliography, arranged by journal title. Part VI is an index to the bibliography, arranged by year of publication. There are two appendices, giving synonymic lists of family group names (Appendix I) and genus-group names (Appendix II) of the Papilionidae and Pieridae. Annotations are issued irregularly to allow additions and corrections to the Catalogue; the first four of these (all dated 1988) are bound in my copy at the end of the volume.
In summary, the five published volumes in this series comprise a comprehensive, although incomplete, world catalog of butterflies and skippers (Bridges favors the largely ignored but still useful term Rhopalocera to separate butterflies and skippers from the tens of thousands of other Lepidoptera we lump under the name "moths"). The extraordinary usefulness of these volumes makes them indispensable tools for all taxonomists and systematists who work on butterflies. This project represents an astonishing amount of work (especially for one person!) and the world's lepidopterists owe Mr. Bridges a great deal of thanks for his herculean efforts, and for publishing his work in such a useful and affordable format.
Boyce A. Drummond, Natural Perspectives, P.O. Box 9061, Woodland Park, Colorado 80866.