FORBES: LEPIDOPTERA 547 



lished; that on early stages is mostlj^ superficial, though studj^ of the pupae is beginning 

 to show some more significant characters. 



PYRALiDiDAi:: ThesB again start with the same pattern: Gueuee and Walker, Herrich- 

 Schaeffer and Lederer, with Guenee introducing the system most used during the nine- 

 teenth century, and Lederer foreshadowing the system used most recently. But in these 

 Pyralids Lederer did not finish his work, covering only the subfamilies grouping about the 

 Pyralidinae and Pyraustinae and omitting the crambid and phycid-like types. This time 

 the modern pattern of subfamilies and genera goes back chiefly to Hampson, in a series of 

 catalogues (1895-1899), merely listing the species in most subfamilies, but describing and 

 figuring the species of Phycitinae, Anerastiinae, and Galleriinae, with Ragonot, in volumes 

 7 and 8 of the Romanoff Mevwires. Beginning with this group Seitz fails us completely; 

 and for species outside the last three subfamilies we have nothing beyond Guenee and 

 Walker except the little group of revisions for North America follow^ing the break-up of 

 the plan for a North American monograph: the Pterophoridae and Crambinae by Fernald, 

 the Nymphulinae and Scoparias by Dyar, the few Macrothecinae by McDunnough. 



microlepidoptera: The micros have followed a very different pattern, and a more 

 complex one. American zoologists for the first fifty years usually treated the smaller 

 species almost wholly from the point of view of biology, and there was a strong feeling 

 that, in the larger genera like Coleophora, Lithocolletis, and Nepticula, adult characters 

 hardly existed. Meanwhile a few stray workers were considering and describing the 

 adults, but only three of these had any real Infiuence: Brackenridge Clemens, especially 

 after Stainton had reprinted his work as the Tineina of North America (1872), V. T. 

 Chambers a little later, and Lord Walsingham, with his series of papers resulting from 

 his trip to California and Oregon in the early 'eighties. When I started, the conventional 

 way to "determine" a tineoid was to rear it, look up the food in Chambers' catalogue 

 {Bull. U. 8. Geol. Snrv., Vol. 4, no. 1, art. 4, 1878), check with Stainton's Natural History 

 of the Tineina for the genus with similar behavior in Europe, and then come up with a 

 guess at the species — the guess was occasionally correct. If it was a broad-winged species 

 with less distinctive habits, we would cruise through Clemens. 



In Europe the micros were arranged in orderly fashion somewhat earlier. In 1853 

 Herrich-Schaeffer completed the Lepidoptera, with keys and many figures, as a supple- 

 ment to Hiibner's Europeans. Somewhat later Heinemann reworked the fauna of central 

 Europe (finished in 1877); and the picture books figured enough species to be service- 

 able. There was also the series of volumes of Stainton's Natural History of the Tineina, 

 with their great contribution to the biology. Then, in the 'eighties and 'nineties Meyrick, 

 in working out the Australasian fauna, developed an ai'bitrary but useful scheme of 

 families for the micros, which he applied to the European fauna in his Handbook of 1895; 

 and this was adapted to the American fauna by Busck in Dyar's List. Meanwhile Spuler 

 had been working in Germany on a more natural system for the micros, partly in col- 

 laboration with Comstock's work on the macros; and the result appeared in Hormuzaki's 

 Analytische Uebersicht der palaearctischen Lepidopterenfamilien (1904) and more fully 

 though without any keys, in Spuler's own Schmetterlinge Europas (1910). We adapted it 

 to the American fauna in the Manual for the Study of Insects, which then became again 

 An l7itroduction to Entomology, and the first part of the Lepidoptera of New York (1920, 

 1924). The Introduction has in fact the later version, since the Lepidoptera was about 

 four years in press. Scattered recent studies show the time is ripe for another reworking. 



In the last half-century there have been a number of helpful revisions and catalogues, 

 mostly of single families and altogether covering hardly half the micros. For central 

 Europe we have Hering's contribution of the Lepidoptera to Brohmer's Tierwelt Mittel- 

 europas ; and for the whole world we have Fletcher's catalogue of all the genera, with 

 their references, types, type localities, and all their synonyms; also their families 

 according to the Meyrick formula. The following list gives a summary of what we have. 

 Note that the Lepidopterorum Catalogus (Lep. Cat.) is supposed to have a complete bibli- 

 ography and general localities, but no descriptive matter; the scope of the Genera Insec- 

 torum {Gen. Ins.) is also world-wide, and gives descriptions and keys down to genus, but, 

 as a rule, only original references. All but the Stenomidae are by Meyrick. The other 

 works cited are for the Nearctic region only. 



