174 Busck — Notes on Some Toiiricid Genera 



namely, the presence or absence of the costal fold on tlie fore- 

 wings of the males. 



This division seems artificial, separating as it does, closely 

 related species as gruneriana Herrich-Schaffer, from alpinana 

 Treitschke; satwnana Guenee, from simpliciana Haworth; 

 kana Busck, from banana Busck, and bringing together species 

 with less affinities as bugnionana Duponchel, with gruneriana 

 and plumbana Scopoli. 



The costal fold seems to me, here as elsewhere in the present 

 arrangement of the Tortricidae, to have been given an undue 

 importance and does not appear to lie of generic value in the 

 family. The character is like most other secondary- sexual char- 

 acters in the Microlepidoptera, sporadic in its appearance and 

 may be found developed in one species, while wanting in the 

 most closely related species. Thus while certain genera un- 

 doubtedly have a general tendency towards the development of 

 the fold and others appear to have no such tendency, the char- 

 acter is not necessarily absolute and the presence or absence of 

 the fold is not necessarily indicative of affinity or the opposite 

 between two species, as little as it proves relation between two 

 genera.* 



The gradual modification of this character in the group undrr 

 consideration from the broad fold, occupying nearly or fully 

 one-half of costa in agilana and phnnbagana — through the nar- 

 row fold of capitana Busck, hardly reaching one-fourth of the 

 wing length— to the mere trace of a fold, as found in kana 

 Busck, also seems but steps towards the total disappearance of 

 the fold in correlated species. 



Absolutely no other character is found, separating the two 

 genera, as they are at present defined and for the purpose of a 

 natural grouping of the species, the two genera niiglit better l)e 

 united, than preserved in their present definition. 



But by removing from Lipoptycha the species which liave other 

 and closer affinities with Hemimene and by taking as type for 



* Thus I can not believe that genera like Eucosrna. Hiibner, Fernald (Epiblema, Mey- 

 rick) ; Capua Stephens and authors, and Arrhipy Hiibner, Fernald (Cacoecin, Meyrick) 

 represent natural groups, as they are at present delined; the diversity of the venation 

 foinid within them, which is far greater than in the group considered in this paper, indi- 

 cates that they iiK'lude pickings from a number of genera, which have the costal fold 

 independently developed and which have no close atlinities otherwise. 



In a subsequent paper, now under way, I shall treat of other groups, which, I think, 

 prove the correctness of this contention still plainer than the present. 



