90 " THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the test of perfection ? Why, in the Libytheina", part of the Nymphalidie, 

 there are six good legs in both sexes, though they evolved from the 

 tainted Lyca^nida- ? These little difficulties will thrust themselves into 

 notice when surveying Mr. Scudder's great scheme. It is very odd that 

 the disease we are talking of should have burst out with virulence one step 

 beyond the healthy Libytheinse, and have swept all before it to the 

 Satyrina?, who yet have managed somehow to live through the 800,000 

 years. 



There is no trace of butterfly life back of the tertiaries. The forma- 

 tion, next below that, is the cretaceous, adverse to butterfly beginnings. 

 Now, the beginning of the tertiaries is estimated by geologists as some- 

 where about 800,000 years ago. All of a sudden the shales are full of 

 insects, and we learn by Mr. Scudder's " Fossil Butterflies," 1875, ^^^ 

 by his later papers, that the very earliest butterflies, whose remains are 

 found, were closely like what we see to-day, the same families and sub- 

 families, so far as the examples go, which are recognized now. In the 

 Fossil Butterflies, nine species are treated of from the Eocene and Miocene. 

 Of these nine, two belong to the Pierinae, one to the Parnassinse, four to 

 the Nymphalidie, and two to tlie Hesperidae. Of the four Nymphalidse 

 two belong to the Satyrinae, and one of them is stated to be very close to 

 Debis (Enodia) Portlaiidia of the United States. The other to be nearly 

 allied to an existing Bornean species. We read, page 83 : — " Our present 

 knowledge places the apparition of butterflies towards the end of the lower 

 tertiaries." It appears then, that on the earliest horizon the " highest " 

 butterflies, as Mr. Scudder esteems them, were living side by side with the 

 "lowest." In the next horizon we find a Hesperid, a Pierid of a genus used 

 in the Butt, N. E., viz., Pontia, and a Nymphalid, also belonging to one 

 of Mr. Scudder's genera, Eugonia, which he created for Grapta_/ album. 

 Since 1875, Ihe American tertiaries have yielded seven other butterflies, 

 of as many species. One is a Pieris nearly allied to P. Rapce ; five are 

 Nymphalinffi, and one is a Libythea ; this last is so well preserved that its 

 legs are clearly to be seen, and Mr. Scudder says that "the fore leg is of 

 the same structure as in the genus to-day." — B.N.E., 759. That is, it has six 

 walking legs, though all the rest of the Nymphalidae have but four. Evi- 

 dently on the leg classification it is a black sheep, and should be hustled out 

 of the Nymphalidse. Further, we are told that in one of the Nymphalina? 

 the legs show that " the atrophy of the fore legs had reached the same 



