NORTH AMERICAN LEPIDOPTERA. Ill 



(Uily with (laiker points and spots, and are often quite translucent, 

 llie head is flattened, somewhat extended ; the first abdominal seg- 

 ment with a cervical, then hist with an anal shield ; the body is cy- 

 lindrical, the segments well marked, nearly smooth, furnished only 

 with a few short, scattered hairs, set on very small warts or tuber- 

 cles. 



Pupa. — The pupa is without marked characteristics. It varies 

 from dark green to cherry in color, is cylindrical with the wing-cases 

 and segments distinctly marked. The pupation is, I believe, always 

 in a cocoon, in the habitat of the larva, upon the sui'face of the 

 ground, or rarely beneath the surface. 



I take little interest comparatively in the guesses which are made 

 of the ancestry of any group of the Lepidoptera. The Lepidoptera 

 have existed so long, the changes have been so great, the insects 

 themselves are so frail in structure and in their life forces, that any 

 effort to trace ancestry from the insects themselves must, it seems to 

 me, be of little value. On general principles we can suppose the 

 earliest Lei:)idoptera were arboreal or aquatic, probably the latter. 

 From the aquatic standpoint the Pyralidae may be supposed in some 

 of their genera to have representatives of very ancient standing, and 

 so also from their habits as leaf-rollers and borers, it may be supposed 

 that the Phycitidse are of very ancient ancestry. Nevertheless, as I 

 have had cases of reversion in specimens to the 12-veined forms, and 

 as there is in fore and hind wings in the case of the less veined species 

 a tendency to revert to the greater number, I think we must regard 

 the 9- and 10-veined groups as departures from a more ancient type. 



The Phycitidse are seemingly very unequally distributed in our 

 country. A few species only are cosmopolitan through the agency 

 of commerce. 



It must be borne in mind that comparatively little collecting hai^ 

 been done in the United States, but so far as we know the species in 

 the wooded districts of the North, East and South, they are com- 

 paratively few in numbers. From what little results I have seen of 

 collecting in subtropical S. Florida, I would suppo.se it to be rich in 

 species, largely the same as those of the West Indies. The })art of 

 the country, however, so far as my knowledge goes, most prolific of 

 Phycitid life, is that part which includes the more or less arid plains 

 of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Soutliern Califjrnia. In this 

 part of the country, wherever there is a development of arborescent 

 vegetation, the Phycitida^ are comparatively numerous. As an ex- 



