51 



Thus Esper (" Die Schmetterlinge," 1782, iii., pi. xlii) figures 

 both sexes ; as do Ernst and Engramelle (" Papillons D'Europe," 

 1786., iv., pi. clix.) Fabricius (" Entoniologia Systematica," iHd'd, 

 iii., p. 452, No. 139) describes the sexes as" Mas cinereo fuscus, fae- 

 minaalbida,panctis aliquot nigris," etc., and Panzer ("Deutschlands 

 Insecten," 1797, xlvi., pi. 23 and 24) among the few Lepidopterons 

 that he deigns to mention, figures both sexes, and although on 

 separate plates tells us that they are the male and female of one 

 species. Hubner too (" Europilischen Schmetterlinge," iii., probably 

 1802, pi. 34, figs 148 and 149) gives us fair representations of both 

 sexes but is less happy in their delineation than he is in most of his 

 species, but Donovan's delightful figures published at about the 

 same date are all that can be desired (" British Insects," 1806, xi., 

 pi. 888). From this time practically every author who includes 

 illustrations in his Avork figures both sexes more or less successfully. 



The generic position of iiiendica has been almost as troublesome 

 to our systematists as was the disparity between the two sexes to 

 our older authors. Linnaeus, of course, placed it in his great group 

 of " tongueless" moths, Bombyx ; and this arrangement was used by 

 many authors. Thus we find Hufnagel (1766), Poda (1761), 

 Esper (1785), Borkhausen (1790), Fabricius (1793), Panzer (1794), 

 Hiibner (Eur. Schmet., 1802, etc.), and Haworth (1803), all using 

 Bombyx as their generic name for this species. But in 1810 

 Ochsenheimer published the volume of his " Die Schmetterlinge 

 von Europa" dealing with the portion of Linnaeus's group in 

 which our species occurs, dividing it into several genera and placed 

 )iienilica along with cribrmii, niftsiila, domiiiida, villica, caia, 

 ftdiijinosa, iiieiitltnstri, iirticae, luhricipeda and a number of other 

 equally dissimilar non-British species in his genus Ei/prepia 

 {Knfirepia) (vol. i., pt. 3., pg. 351), and this name was used by Schott 

 (" Schmetterlings Kalender," 1836) for the same species, by Dubois 

 (" Lepidopteres (le la Belgique," 1880) in a more restricted sense, 

 and by some others. 



In 1816 Hiibner published the " Verzeichnis bekannter Schmet- 

 terlinge " in which he divided the larger groups into Stirps, Families 

 and Genera. One genus he called 1 >iacrisia, the only species which 

 he placed in it being rnssida ; to this I shall have to refer later. 

 Another genus that he created was Ci/cnia in which mendica was 

 included together with some five other species or supposed species, 

 and in this generic determination he was followed by Curtis (Cat., 

 1837), Westwood (1843), and Walker (1855), but it did not come 

 into general use. 



Schrank had in the meantime founded the genus Arctia ("Fauna 

 Boica," 1798), including in it caja, hera,plantagi)tis, villica, dominida, 

 fnli<iinom, rtissida, iiwiitliastri, lubricipeda, and mendica, and it was 

 adopted by Meigen (1832), Koch (1848), and Edward Newman 

 (1869) ; and Godart's (Jhelonia (" Histoire Naturelle des Lepidop- 



