The Linnean distribution was vague and unsatisfactory, even at the time when it was first produced, and soon became utterly inapplicable when the amount of known species was increased. But it did not fail to exercise, like every other system emanating from that gifted mind, a powerful influence on the progress of the science, and is interesting on account of its ingenuity and poetical elegance. “It is an attempt,” says Dr. Shaw, “to combine, in some degree, natural and civil history, by attaching the memory of some illustrious ancient name to an insect of a particular cast.” The first Linnæan division consists of _Equites_, which are distinguished by the shape of the upper wings; these are longer, measured from their posterior angle to their anterior extremity, than from the same point to the base; the antennæ sometimes filiform. The _equites_ are denominated _Troes_ or Trojans, distinguished by having blood-coloured spots on each side of the breast: or _Achivi_, Greeks, which are without red marks on the breast, of gayer colours, and having an eye-shaped spot on the anal angle of the inferior wings. The second division consists of _Heliconii_, which are distinguished by having the wings narrow and entire, often naked or without scales; the superior oblong, the inferior very short. The third division consists of the _Danai_, so called from the sons and daughters of Danaus. They are divided into _Danai candidi_, or such as have whitish wings, and _Danai festivi_, in which the ground colour is never white, and the surface variegated. The fourth division consists of the _Nymphales_, distinguished by the edges of the wings being scolloped or indented; it is subdivided into _N. gemmati_, in which the wings are marked with ocellated spots, and _N. Phalerati_, without these spots. The fifth division contains the _Plebeii_. These are commonly smaller than the preceding butterflies, and are subdivided into _rurales_ and _urbicolæ_; the former having the wings marked with obscure spots, the latter for the most part with transparent spots.