

Vol. XLIII. LONDON, JUNE, 191 1. No. 6 



ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE MALE GENITALIA IN 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



BY J. MCDONNOUGH, PH. D., DECATUR, ILL. 



The genitalia in Lepidoptera have, within the last ten years, become 

 one of the most important factors in systematic work, and no revision of 

 any group can be considered complete which does not deal with the 

 subject of the sexual armature, serving as it does in many cases to separate 

 species otherwise difficult to distinguish. This being the case, it is all the 

 more to be regretted that already at this comparatively early date in the 

 history of the subject the terminology has become so involved. The 

 female armature, owing to its comparative simplicity, and possibly to the 

 fact that it has not been so carefully studied as that of the male, has 

 suffered little in this respect, but in reviewing the literature on the male 

 genitalia we are at once met by a hopeless jumble of terms, which to say 

 the least of it neither tends to elucidate an already difficult subject, nor to 

 awaken a growing interest in the average collector for this particular branch 

 of his hobby. As a case in point, and one that gave the prime motive 

 power for this present paper, we might cite the following : Prof. J. B. 

 Smith, in his various publications on North American Noctuidse, uses the 

 term " harpe " for the two outermost lateral valve-like appendages of the 

 male, applying the term ''' clasp er'' to a portion of the inner armature of 

 this same harpe, usually in the form of a curved hook or rod arising from 

 the mid-ventral surface. In this he has been followed by various American 

 authors, and also by Pierce, who in the introduction to his valuable work 

 on the Genitalia of British Noctuids, has attempted to define the various 

 parts. If, on the other hand, we turn to Rothschild and Jordan's Mono- 

 graph of the Sphingidse, we find these same terms used in exactly an 

 inverse sense ; the outermost appendages are termed "r/<?^/^/'5," whilst for 

 the inner armature the term ''harpe'' is employed. Obviously only one 

 of the learned authors can be correct in his use of the above terms, and 

 prompted partly by curiosity, partly by a thirst for knowledge, we have 

 delved somewhat deeply into the bibliography of the subject. In the 

 following paper we have endeavoured to fix and apply the correct names 



