208 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ishing the higher divisions are lost sight of. ThQ Satyr idee are evidently 

 " lower " than the Nymphalidce^ perhaps retaining in habits and markings 

 traces of a former physical condition of the globe. I have written briefly, 

 originally, on the habits and conditions of Oe?ieis semidea, and I regard 

 this genus as a low, perhaps the lowest type of Satyrid. We now come 

 to a series of " families " of butterflies in which the shortening of the fore- 

 feet is confined to the male sex. These are the Libytheidce, as I have 

 thought, a very old form of butterfly (Can. Ent. XVIII. , 163), the Ery- 

 cinidce, to which I would refer my genus Feniseca, and the Lycceindce, in 

 which the rnale fore tibiae end in a booklet. We now come to the six- 

 footed butterflies, which we may divide into three "families," the Pie7'idce, 

 the Parnassidce and the Papilionidce. The Hesperidce, which differ by 

 the proportions of the body and position of the wings, fall into two 

 groups, as the fore tibiae are with or without epiphysis, and may then 

 follow. The series of butterflies may be closed by my Faleohesperidce, 

 with spinose tibite, — moth-like butterflies preparing us for the Castniadce, 

 and apparently relics of a stage between moth and butterfly surviving in 

 the North American fauna. 



There is, I think, nothing to be gained by cataloguing our Lepidoptera 

 upside down, as seems to be proposed by Packard, commencing with the 

 supposed " lowest " moths. Theoretically we may conceive that the 

 moths are " lower " than the butterflies, and that in some unknown way 

 the latter have come from moth like ancestors. Palaeontological proof is 

 now wanting, but there is some circumstantial evidence to be gathered 

 that such has been the case. If there has been evolution, then butterfly- 

 like forms cannot have produced moths, but the reverse. At a later 

 epoch in the history of creation than the origin of butterflies, changes of 

 climate have evidently taken place. The winter now finds the butterflies 

 in all stages. The lethargy of the half-grown caterpillar seems to have 

 survived from a time when the winters were longer, came more suddenly, 

 than at present. It was no longer time for the butterfly to grow, or the 

 food plant formerly then perished. Now there is time and food, but the 

 butterfly will not yet believe it, needing the evidence of centuries, and 

 prepares to winter. In the moths I only have observed that certain 

 species remain as caterpillars within the cocoon until spring. 



For practical purposes, as well as for the work of comparing the 

 faunae of North America and Europe, and arrivmg at some conclusions as 



