THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 225 



So far we have gone . over the principal features of the Bombycidce, 

 more in explanation of the sequence adopted by me in the Check Lists, 

 and which is that of Dr. Packard's Synopsis of 1864, than in any 

 attempt to re-classify the family. But Dr. Packard gives no definitions 

 of the higher groups, and the diagnoses of the new genera do not include 

 certain structural characters, as, for instance, the neuration. I cannot 

 here attempt to limit the genera, and I only give the characters which 

 render the higher groups more or less recognizable. The neuration must 

 be comparatively studied. As a whole it seems to me to show characters 

 of simplicity. The cells are generally open ; there is an absence of 

 accessory cells and crowding of veins, such as we see in some other 

 familes of moths. We can believe that the Sphingidce may have been 

 thrown off from the same stem when we compare the neuration. Other 

 characters, such as the absence of ocelli, may be additional indices. In 

 the Noctnidce the ocelli are quite rarely absent, in the Geometridas quite 

 rarely present. But they appear in some sub-families of Bombycidce, 

 though not in the lower ones and in the more typical Spinners, such as, I 

 think, stand nearer to the Hawk Moths. The Bombycidce are, as we find 

 chem now, detached groups with very diverse resemblances to other now 

 distinct families of Moths. In this diverse resemblance lies the proof of 

 the synthesis which the Spinner Moths present. To detach the different 

 sub-families which we have here discussed is to lose sight of some of those 

 finer questions of relationship which a close study of these insects calls 

 up. No family of Moths is more interesting to the student on this 

 account than the Bombycidce, with its great diversity of structure, appear, 

 ance and habit. To the collector the beauty of the moths, their bright 

 colors, the soft shading, the size of most of the species is equally tempt- 

 ing, while to the practical mind, the fact that the silk-worm, Bombyx 

 mori, and other silk-producers, belong to the Bombycidce., must render the 

 pursuit of these insects sufficiently attractive. They live short lives, the 

 incomplete mouth parts render food- taking to many kinds an impossibility; 

 they live so long as caterpillars or chrysalids, and lay their eggs and die. 

 But the human mind seizes upon the many considerations, which it has 

 evolved from a study of the facts presented by these creatures, and turns 

 them to its profit or its pleasure. 



