Stephens, J. F. 1829b. A systematic catalogue of British

INTRODUCTION, ' XVU
If, therefore, it be so difficult for entomologists of experience
occasionally to discriminate the distinction of the perfect produc-
tions of the Creator, how much more so must be the task of de-
tecting them through the imperfect descriptions of the creature f ?
It now only remains for me to add a few words upon the Cata-
logue itself. Although I have endeavoured to render it as perfect
as its nature will admit, so far as relates to the number of species
at present discovered, many are doubtless omitted ; for if no single
cabinet has ever yet contained a specimen of each of the indigenous
Lepidoptera diurna,the most conspicuous and eagerly sought after
of our insects (and such has been the case with those which I
have inspected, at least two hundred in number), how much less
chance is there of obtaining a knowledge of all the minute and
hitherto neglected species? And as the following Catalogue is
necessarily in several places entirely prepared from the contents of
my own cabinet; from the extreme difficulty of recognizing kindred
species in particular groups, added to the facts that no British col-
lection has as yet been named throughout, and that the less favoured
insects are usually kept in a confused and unnamed mass,
a cprrect knowledge of such species is perfectly unattainable; nevertheless,
as less than four thousand species have hitherto been
recorded by name, by all preceding English writers, to inhabit
Britain, and nearly ten thousand are nanied in the following pages,
the fact of my having moTe than doubled the number sufficiently
evinces the exertions I have made to attain perfection : and by
way of increasing its utility, I have endeavoured to form this work
into an Entomologia Londinensis, by placing a * at the end of
every species which to my knowledge has been captured within
twenty-five miles of St. Paul's. I have also given an authority for
the insertion of every species, where practicable, by a set of cha-
racters which require explanation.—To such insects as I have never
f That this is an object of difficulty may be seen with facility by an inspection
of the numerous synonyms, many doubtless arising from misconception,
and may be illustrated by a reference to the genus Cicindela, as
being the first in the series, and containing insects of considerable size.
Marsham gives three indigenous species of this genus ; since his time,
other species have turned up, amongst which one termed Ci. hybrida by
Sowerby has occurred in no little profusion. Upon this insect I hazarded
the conjecture that it was the true Ci. hybrida of Linne, as it had been
invariably recorded by English writers, and suspected to be by the best con-
tinental ones ; and upon the re-examination of the series in my collection,
I detected a single example of an insect which has since proved to appertain
to a distinct species, and which has recently been given as the true
Ci. hybrida, by a writer who previously gave the former species tliat appellation,
notwithstanding he had repeated opportunities of examining
both kinds in my collection, and at the time of his first recording Ci. hybrida,
Linn, as an indigenous insect, that species had not been detected by
English entomologists, but only the one which he now terms Ci. maritima!
b