PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA OF ALBERTA, N.-W. T

Extract

It is now over three years since I published a list of Albertan butterflies under the above title. The list gave promise “to be continued,” and it was fully intended at the time to publish the continuation the same year, but for a variety of reasons it had to be postponed. The delay, however, has not been without advantages. Not only have a number of species come to hand that had not been recorded here up to that time, but many that were then standing under names by which I had known them for years, have been found to be wrongly named, and several of them have been described as new species. Closer study, too, of long series, has resulted in a better understanding of nearly allied forms; and it is hoped that some of the notes here appended, though they have no claim to perfection, will enable some obscure species to be more easily separated than they have been hitherto. At the same time, I much regret that I have not been able to make more comparison of local material with that from other districts. Not only has it been hard to spare the time which much exchanging calls for, but it has often proved a very difficult, if not impossible matter, to get by exchange some of the commonest species, their very commonness seeming to render them, so to speak, scarce, at least in collections. I hope, however, to pay more attention to exchange in the future, and when more forms from other localities have come to hand the result of their study, and comparison with their Alberta representatives will probably be published from time to time.