1899.] GROTE — GENEALOGICAL TREES OF lUTTERFLTES. ■ 151 



Pieridae, these the Swallowtails, these the Nymphalids and again the 

 Blues. The dislocation of tlie Blues and Skippers is entire and the 

 positions are so reversed that a criticism here would take up too 

 much space. This criticism will, moreover, become apparent upon 

 a comparison with what I have written in these pages and elsewhere. 

 It will be better to pass on to the latest tree published of which I 

 have any knowledge.. 



Fig. 3. Monophyleiic tree of the Butterflies^ HampsoUy i8g8. 

 Nymphalidae Satyridae Lycsenidse 



Pieridae Erycinidge 



PapilionidcK 



Hesperiadge 



It is to be presumed that Mr. Meyrick agrees with this classifica- 

 tion. There is no entire tree of the butterflies in the Handbook, 

 1895, but the classification agrees with the above, while there are a 

 number of diagrams of the generic branchlets. A study of these 

 show that Mr. Meyrick has not read the meaning of the changes in 

 position of the veins as made out by Comstock and myself. It is^ 

 characteristic of the genealogies of Meyrick and Hampson, that no- 

 reasons for the position of the groups are given in the accompany- 

 ing text. They cannot thus be subjected to a proper scrutiny, and 

 are, to a great extent, enigmatical. In the above tree the Hespe- 

 riadae, with two internal veins on the hind wings, are placed at the 

 base of the series, in the position of ancestors of the Papilionides, 

 which have only one. This, of itself, would not be incredible. 

 But we are further asked to believe that the Papilionides, with one 

 internal vein, have then given birth to a variety of divergent 

 forms having again two internal veins on the hind wings. This is 

 quite incredible. It may be said that analogous contradictions 

 occur in such of Mr. Meyrick's genealogies as I have carefully ex- 

 amined. It is understood that Mr. Meyrick has paid great atten- 

 tion to the veining of the wings, but in his resultant systems the 

 character is apparently not regarded as crucial. 



