16 NATURAL SCIENCE [January 



secondary and primary characters, as well as by neglecting the 

 lessons taught by a study of the neuration or veining of the wings. 

 But first we will hear Mr Scudder : 



" It is well known that as a general rule moths undergo their 

 transformations to chrysalis within a cocoon, spun by the caterpillar, 

 or in a cell moulded beneath the surface of the ground. The same 

 is true of the lowest family {i.e. of Day Butterflies) Hesperidae, 

 which usually make such a cocoon within a rolled-up leaf or cluster 

 of leaves, and hence had given them by Boisduval the term Involuti. 

 It was not noted by him, nor has it been, as far as we are aware, by 

 any author, though figured by many, that within this cocoon they 

 generally, perhaps always, spin a pair of shrouds, into the middle of 

 one of which they plunge their cremaster, while by the othey they 

 support the middle of the body. 



" Now, remove this outer cocoon and leave the shrouds, and one 

 has, with only such changes as are absolutely required by the lack 

 of the encircling cocoon, the character of the support of the chrysalis 

 of the Papilionidae, viz., a button of silk attached to the object from 

 which the chrysalis hangs, and a loose girt around the middle of the 

 body. In the Lycaenidae, we pass simply to a still closer attach- 

 ment of these fastenings, so that the rounded chrysalis appears 

 almost glued to the surface to which it is attached ; and these two 

 families, the Lycaenidae and the Papilionidae were classed by Bois- 

 duval under his Succincti. In the Nymphalidae, by the loss of the 

 median girt the chrysalis hangs suspended by its hinder end, and 

 forms the group termed by Boisduval Suspensi or Penduli, which 

 he and his followers interpose between the Involuti and the Suc- 

 cincti. Yet we have here a regular progression from the cocoon 

 of the moths to tlie almost total absence of the use of any silk of the 

 quiescent period of life. Even the few exceptions to this rule seem 

 to be entirely explainable as instances of reversion. Thus the only 

 case among the higher butterflies where a cocoon properly speaking 

 is made, is in the subfamilies most closely allied to the Hesperidae, 

 among the group of Parnassidi and Anthocharidi ; and again in ex- 

 ceedingly feeble instances where the necessities appear to be over- 

 whelmingly great, among some of the higher Nymphalidae, which 

 have lost even the last remnant of the cocoon of moths, viz., in 

 some of the Satyridae, which lack cremastral hooks and undergo 

 their transformations ordinarily in the rudest form of a cell which 

 they can construct above or at the surface of the ground, by the 

 mere movements of the body and the spinning of one or two threads 

 of silk." 



I think, from the above extract, it is clear that Mr Scudder 

 rests his classification upon considerations drawn from the peculiari- 

 ties of the mode of spinning, i.e., the preparations made by the 



