Ɛpsilon

WCP672

Letter (WCP672.844)

[1]

[in Stainton’s hand] Ans 9/12/71

Holly House, Barking, E.

Decr 7th. 1871.

Dear Stainton1

I have been looking at Hubner’s2 "Verzeichniss bek. Schmetterling"3 — the work which has caused such an upsetting of generic names of butterflies, — & it seems to me that there are no generic characters, but only such indications of colour and form as serve for a superficial classification. Will you be so good as to tell me if this is so. Are there any thing we [2] should call generic characters indicated; — or anything by which species differing in appearance (as they do in so many otherwise natural genera) can be grouped together.

Does he say anything in his preface to show what he intended his groups to be?

Àpropos of catalogues I want to touch on this subject in my address,4 which is my excuse for troubling you.

[3] Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

1
Stainton, Henry Tibbats (1822-1892). British Entomologist. Secretary of the Entomological Society of London 1850-52; Secretary of the Linnean Society 1869-74; Secretary of the Zoological Record Association 1871-86.
2
Hübner, Jacob (1761-1826). German entomologist.
3
Hübner, J. 1816. Verzeichniss bekannter Schmettlinge. Augsburg.
4
Probably referring to the President's Address read at the Entomological Society of London's annual meeting of 22 January 1872. See Wallace, A. R. 1872. The President's Address. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London for the Year 1871: li-lxxv.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP672.844)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Bourne, Fiona [2013-04-26] Transcription checked by Costa, Leslie11/11/2024 [2022-07-19]

Please cite as “WCP672,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP672