( 448 ) 



As we read in II. p. 59, " If my laws of the development of the pattern are 

 correct, then my inferences as to the relationship based upon these laws must be 

 right," one would be justified in accepting the inverse of this sentence, considering 

 that those inferences are largely erroneous, namely : as the relationship deduced 

 " with absolute necessity " from the " laws " of development of the pattern is not 

 correct, the " laws " must be fallacious. But this conclusion would be hasty ; for 

 the most general " law," namely that the phyletic connection between allied forms 

 can be demonstrated by a comparison of the organs of the forms, is certainly sound. 

 This basis of comparative morphology will not be shaken, if an author who adopts 

 it comes to erroneous results. That Eimer applied the methods of comparative 

 morphology also to the wing-pattern can only be mentioned with praise ; but that 

 the application was carried out with a certain amount of looseness is shown by the 

 strange results in the classification of the species, and becomes also obvious, if one 

 examines the more general results which bear upon classification, of which the two 

 principal ones arc, (1) the deduction of the ancestral pattern of all Lepidoptera, and 

 (2) the kind of development called Homoeogenesis. 



The pattern of the wings of the ancestral Lepidopteron consisted, according to 

 Eimer, of eleven " longitudinal " bands running over both wings at right angles to 

 the veins. I will not enter into the question, whether Haase was right in main- 

 taining these " longitudinal " bands should be called " transverse " ; such a contest 

 ends necessarily in a squabble about the proper meaning of ambiguous words. But 

 it is self-evident that, if one calls a band in one group of Lepidoptera " longitudinal '" 

 if it runs across the veins, one cannot call it in another group " transverse " if it has 

 the same position to the veins, provided that the veins in all Lepidoptera, nay, in all 

 insects, are homologous. That the latter is the case cannot be doubted, and it is, 

 therefore, a serious matter to maintain, as Eimer does (II. p. 49), that the bands of 

 the forewing of Nod uidae— -which run across the veins as in Papilios— might very 

 well be called " transverse," because there are no corresponding bands, as continua- 

 tions of the former, on the hindwing. 



Elmer's contention in respect to the pattern of the ancestral Lepidopteron may 

 be divided into two parts: (1) that the number of the bands on the wings of the 

 ancestor of all Lepidoptera was eleven, and (2) that the bands were continuous, 

 running from the costal margin of the forewing to the abdominal margin of the 

 hindwing. The first point can be briefly disposed of. The only argument I can find 

 in Artbildung and Orthogenesis for this part of the contention is, that all the 

 different wing-patterns of Lepidoptera can be derived from eleven bands, namely 

 the highest nnmber of bands found in I'apiUo podaliriits. C!crtainly, but their 

 derivation from any other number of bands is just as easy to carry out, if one adopts 

 Elmer's method. For he says {Orthogenesis p. 2.5.5) that the original eleven bands 

 have been split up into more, if the number of bands is larger, and that bands have 

 disappeared by fusion with others or by obliteration, if he finds a smaller number of 

 bands. Eimer counts on the forewing in 1'. po</<dirias six bands from the base to 

 the discocellular veinlets, and five between this point and the apex of the wing. In 

 his figure of Cethosia {I.e. p. 117) there are from the base to the discocellular 

 veinlets seven distinct black bands, an indistinct band, and a basal spot corresjjond- 

 ing (according to Elmer's method) to one more band ; these nine separate bands are 

 counted by Eimer as five, while in other Sijmphalidae which have less bauds in the 

 cell he counts every single band as one. In Cethosia myrina from Celebes there 

 are eight bands in the cell ; the Brahmacidae, many Oeomctridae and other Moths 



