1898] 359 



CORRESPONDENCE 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE OF MOTHS 



I HAVK read, in coimnou with doubtless most lepidopterists, tlie circular relating to 

 the publication of a series of volumes on the Lepidoptera Plialaenac with interest, in my 

 case heightened by tlie fact that types of more than five Imndred species described by 

 myself are contained in the Britisli Museum collection. It is owing to this interest, felt 

 in the success of tlie undertaking, that I wisli to protest against the resolution expressed 

 in paragraph 10 of the circular, that tlie classification will follow that adopted by Mr E. 

 Meyrick in his recent Avork on Britisli Lepidoptera. May I suggest at once, that in a 

 work like that proposed, a wise conservatism in the choice of the arrangement of the 

 material will best subserve its purposes ? In the present instance the choice of Mr 

 Meyrick's classification is peculiarly unfortunate, since this rests upon speculations which 

 the results of recent research stamp as improbabilities. From Mr Meyrick's work it 

 appears certain that (1) it does not afford a working theory as to the evolutionary 

 changes of the neuration upon whicli the classification is nevertheless apparently based, 

 while Mr Meyrick fails to give sufficient or reasonable proof for the probability of his 

 sequences, and also (2) that the figures of neuration with which Mr Meyrick's writings 

 are interspersed are quite inaccurate and misleading so far as I have been able to com- 

 pare them with the originals. This is not a matter of opinion but of ocular demonstra- 

 tion. I have published a plate in the Illustrirtc JVochensclirift fur Entomologie, to 

 wliich I invite the attention of British entomologists, and upon which I reproduce, by 

 photographic process, Mr Meyrick's figure of the neuration of Venilia viacidaria as pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Entomolocjical Society. Side by side I give the actual 

 neuration of the species, and it is sufficient to say of the two figures that any conclusions 

 or any systems based upon their respective features must run diametrically opposite in 

 all important particulars. Nor is this figure of Air Meyrick's an exception or an especi- 

 ally unfavourable specimen. The figures in the ' Handbook,' of the diurnals especially, 

 which I have compared, are caricatures in greatest part. The result of recent investiga- 

 tion, as a whole, far from lending itself to any such phylogenetic speculations as have 

 been published by Mr Meyrick and are laid down in paragraph 10 of the Prospectus, 

 runs often counter to any such assumed relationships between the groups. One of the 

 most notable efforts of the present time is Dr Dyar's use of the position of the larval 

 tubercles as a guide in defining taxonomically the larger Linnean groups. In brief, Dr 

 Dyar shows us that the Sphingides, Saturniades and Bombycides (including Noctuidae 

 and Geometridae) are on larval characters separate and homogeneous groups, and that 

 only certain families, such as the Sesiadae, Anthroceridae, Cossidae, Psychidae, etc., are 

 to be removed to the Tineides, their affinity with tliis latter group having been pre- 

 viously noticed by different observers from other characters than the position of the 

 tubercles. Further, it becomes probable, through the researches of Dr Chapman, that 

 the pliylogeny of the larger gi'oups above cited, and including the diurnals, leads inde- 

 pendently to ancient forms, of which the Tineides are the modern, less changed survival. 

 It seems thus that the day butterflies, the Hawk Moths and the Emperor Moths may 

 have their separate origin in the Tineid group, while the taxonomic character revealed 

 by Dr Dyar confirms their respective homogeneity. The supposed phylogenetic lines by 

 whioh Mr Meyrick traces the descent, as given in paragraph 10, are drawn without 

 reference to the characters brought forward by Dr Dyar. The most serious objection to 

 their adoption lies, however, in their being insufficiently or not motived by Mr Meyrick. 

 Indeed, it is easy to show that, in the diurnals of Mr Meyrick's ' Handbook,' the charac- 



