THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. Si 



wings correctly, and this seems to have been done quite successfully. 

 The colouring, however, is not as satisfactory, in some cases, as could 

 have been desired. 



Tne introduction gives a complete history of the sub-family and of 

 their structure and classification, and, at the end, a synoptical table of the 

 genera of the Phycitini, the first division of the Phycitint^. The second 

 division (Anerastini) and the Galleriinpe will appear in the next volume. 



It will be seen that M. Ragonot does not agree with many English 

 and American entomologists in classification, for he regards these insects 

 as a sub-family, while many others give them family rank. I must con- 

 fess that I have, for a long time, been of M. Ragonot's opinion, and 

 varied from it in Smith's List of the Lepidoptera only for the sake of 

 uniformity, since the plan of that work was determined by others. It 

 was a case of " Mohamet and the mountain." 



The entire work will form two volumes of Romanoff's magnificent 

 Memoirs of the Lepidoptera, and all the species will be figured, so far as 

 it is possible to secure specimens, except such as have already been 

 figured. American students of the Microlepidoptera, as well as those of 

 other countries, owe a debt of gratitude, not only to Mons. Ragonot for 

 the excellent manner in which he has done his work, but also to His 

 Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Nicolas Mikhailovitch, for affording 

 M. Ragonot the opportunity of publishing this beautiful and useful work, 

 and of illustrating it so profusely. C. H. Fernald. 



Evolution and Taxonomy : An essay on the application of the theory 

 of natural selection in the classification of animals and plants, illus- 

 trated by a study of the evolution of the wings of insects and by a 

 contribution to the classification of the Lepidoptera, by John Henry 

 Comstock, B. S. The Wilder Quarter-Century Book, pp. 37-113. 

 All scientific entomologists will be gratified at the appearance of this 

 paper, which is an attempt to base a classification of the Lepidoptera 

 upon the ground of evolution. It is evolution by natural selection, not 

 befogged by the questionable action of so-called "acquired characters." 

 The Lepidoptera are divided into two suborders, the Jugatse and Frenatae, 

 according to the two essentially different methods of uniting the fore and 

 hind wings in flight. 



The primitive venation is supposed to have consisted of six principal 

 veins or groups of veins, from which the present ones were derived by a 



