602 On Synthetic Types in Insects. 



group. Within the sub-order of Lepidoptera there is a 

 true and beautiful synthesis located in the Bombyces. 

 Among the twelve sub-families which I have found to 

 compose the single group above mentioned, there are five 

 which are recognized by all lepidopterists to be analogous 

 to nearly every other family of the sub-order. The Litho- 

 siidiE resemble the TineidaB ; Orgyia, one of the Liparidae, 

 is like a Geometrid ; the larvas of Limacodes look like 

 those of Lycaena, and the moths like some Tortrices ; 

 different genera of the Notodontidse resemble the Noctuids 

 and Pyralids ; the PlatyptericidsB also look exceedingly 

 like Geometrids ; and the larvae of Bombyx mori and 

 Endromis have an anal horn towards which the body in- 

 creases in size like the larvae of Sphinx. From this it will 

 be seen that these analogies are confined to similar stages 

 of growth, since the synthesis only occurs between imago 

 and imago, and larva and larva. 



Edward Newman was so much misled by these anal- 

 ogies, that, following the septenary arrangement, he placed 

 the Neuroptera in the centre of the other six sub-orders 

 of insects, and the Bombyces in the centre of the families 

 of Lepidoptera. As regards the latter, he considered 

 each of the subdivisions of the family, some of which I 

 have enumerated above, as families (" sub-classes " or " or- 

 ders ") equivalent to other families of insects established 

 by Latreillc and now commonly received. How artificial 

 such an arrangement of a limited number of groups into 

 circles is, becomes evident in his confession that " the 

 larva appears to me anything but a guide in the connection 

 of sub-classes." * 



Do we push this inquiry too far when, in considering 

 the great and unusual differences between the families of 

 the Neuroptera, which have led many writers to divide 

 them up into from two to as many as five divisions ccjuiv- 



♦ Sphinx Vespiformis, p. 38. 



