FORBES: LEPIDOPTERA 



549 



"frenulum-conservers" has also turned out to be significant, when checked to the 

 egg and larval characters discovered or emphasized by Dyar. It was only neces- 

 sary to realize that the frenulum-losers included not only the families that had 

 usually lost the frenulum, but also those, like the Geometridae, that showed 

 merely a tendency to lose it (as worked out in Comstock's A71 Introduction to 

 Entomology [1920] and my own Lepidoptera of New York). 



Tutt, in his British Lepidoptera, presented a second system, especially in 

 pages 102-128, of volume 1. His idea was that the Lepidoptera followed not 

 one but two roughly parallel lines of evolution from the lowest to the highest 

 branches. His wealth of argument and data gave him considerable authority 

 for a time, but I think he no longer has any followers. 



Later study of the auditory (or sonar) organs gave further emphasis to 

 the "frenulum-conservers" as a unitary group. The organ itself has long been 

 known, was first described in detail by Swinton in 1877, for a noctuid (Entom. 

 Monthly Mag., 14:123), and I got a glimpse of its phylogenetic value in 1916 

 {Psyche, 23:183), but it was not until Eggers' studies (1919, 1925, 1928) that 

 its value was established. The organ is also useful below the family level, as 

 has been shown by Richards {Entom. Amer., vol. 13 (no. 1), 1933), working on 

 the Noctuidae, and by Luh (thesis, published only in abstract) on the Arctiidae. 

 At present Kiriakoff is working on other Noctuoidea. 



Personally I stand by the system of the Lepidoptera of New York and the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica except for the micros, where recent work (notably 

 that of Hinton) will probably result in some radical changes. But I fear no con- 

 ventional classification will fully express the step-wise evolution of the forms ly- 

 ing below the Tineidae. 



Some figures : The following counts will suggest the gradual increase in knowl- 

 edge of the species of Lepidoptera. It is rather curious that the last complete 

 catalogue of the order (Walker) lies in just the same period as the first for 

 North America (Morris). All figures are rough, and the suggested totals for 

 the world are merely guesses. The Harris catalogue (1833) was for Massachu- 

 setts only, and the total should be increased to allow for the Abbot discoveries 

 published by Hiibner and Smith; tlie Morris catalogue included Mexico and 

 the West Indies. 



WORLD FAUNA 



Noctuidae 



Linnaeus ( 1758 ) 66 



Fabricius (1793-1794) 380 



Hubner (about 1820) 784 



Walker (about 1860, roughly) 5,625 



Hampson (about 1910, partly estimate) 14,357 



Present (pure guess) 18,500 25,000 80,000 



NEARCTIC FAUNA 



Harris, 1833 (Massachusetts only) 107 



Morris, 1860 (North America) 486 



Grote, Edwards, Chambers (about 1880) 1,409 



Dyar (1903) 2,128 



Barnes and McDunnough (1917) 2,532 



McDunnough (1938-1939 ) 2,693 



