1865.] ' 169 



AECTONOTUS, Boisduval. 

 117. lucidus. 



Arctonotus luciduft, Boisd., Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 2ieme. Ser. t. 10, p. 319. (1852.) 

 Arctonotus lucidus, Walker, C. B. M. part S, p. 265. (185fi.) 

 Arcio7iotu.s lucidus, Clem., Syn. N. A. Sjth. Jour. A. N. S. Phil. p. 188 (1859.) 

 Arctonotus lucidus, Morris, Syn. N. A. Lep. Sm. Ins. p. 217. (1862.) 

 Habitat.—" California." (Boisduval.) 



NOTES AND DESCRIPTIONS. 



In a " Synopsis of North American Sphingidae," * Dr. Brackenridge 

 Clemens has elaborately defined the structural features which limit the 

 Family and Mr. Grote, in his "Notes on Cuban Sphingidae," ■}" has 

 regarded it in the sense in which it is here intended. 



The genus Sphinx of Linnaeus, which comprised series of species 

 united by the most general and superficial character, has been resolved 

 into Families by Latreille and other Naturalists, a course which has 

 received the sanction of continued affirmation, the result of determinate 

 studies of the present Order of Insecta. 



The tendency in the Lepidoptera, by an ultimate variability of form 

 — which latter is an essential feature in family character — to afibrd so- 

 called connecting links, which are in reality but Analagous Types, has 

 induced Naturalists often to erect incoherent groups, embracing distinct 

 Families, or to adopt Family names for small groups of genera, held 

 together by peculiar and therefore varying and unequal affinities, thus 

 affording no scope for a conception of the Natural Plan of the Order. 

 Latreille, in his " Considerations Generales,"| when arranging his Family 

 "Sphingidae," inaugurates it with Casfnia, which latter genus later 

 study has removed to the Zygaenidae, || but leaves it improved by the 

 elimination of the .^Egeriidae (Sesiidae), a course which seems so proper 

 as to create surprise, that the latter Family should have been again 

 associated with the Sphingidae, by subsequent Naturalists. 



Zoologists are agreed, that the distribution of species over the surface 

 of the earth is unequal, and, that areas of unequal value can be defined 

 within any one Continent or Ocean, that shall contain peculiar species, 

 which separate them into distinct Faunae. § The widest geographical 



*Art. V, Journal Academy Natural Sciences, Phil., pp. 97—190. (1859.) 

 t Proceedings Entomological Society, Phil., Vol. V, pp. 33—84. (1865.) 

 t Considerations Generales sur I'ordre natural des Animaux composant les 

 Classes des Crustaces, des Arachnides, et des Insectes; avec un Tableau Metho- 

 dique de leurs Genres, disposes en Families, Par P. A. Latreille. Paris, 1810. 

 II Packard, Notes on the Family Zygsenidte, Proc Essex Institute. (1864.) 

 § Agassiz, Ess. on Classification, pp. 42 — 52, Lond. Ed., (1859); and Methods of 

 Study in Nat. Hist., pp. 99, 100, Best. Ed. (1863.) 



