1G4 [July. 



common ancestors of the Lepidoptera and Trichoplera to which they are more 

 nearly allied than other more specialized groups we entirely agree with him, but as 

 the branches of his phylogenetic tree diverge we fail to see the corresponding diyer- 

 gence of the families which flower on the leading shoots, e.g., are the Tortricides and 

 Tineides, or his two opposite sections of the Psychides, more divergent from each 

 other than the ancestral forms from which he derives them ? What is the sum of 

 the characters, larval, oval, or imaginal which supports the theory of such 

 divergence ? Again, take the Agdistides to which Mr. Tutt assigns a branch from 

 the stem of the Pterophorides, why should he not with equal justification branch 

 them from the stem of the Bomhycides or Sphingides from the evidence afforded by 

 the tubercular processes on the thoracic and anal somites of the larvae — characters 

 which appear in more than one European species ? It is of course true that the 

 only British species of Agdistis has a smooth larva but this is not a diagnostic 

 character in the genus as at present constituted. Why again does he place the 

 Qelechiides and the Hyponomeutides between the Orneodides and the Pyralides 

 (both possessing developed maxillary palpi) the latter by his arrangement far remote 

 from the Pterophorides with which Meyrick and Hampson have placed them in 

 close conjunction ? 



Mr. Tutt says nothing disparaging about Sir George Hampson's work although 

 he distinctly differs from many of his conclusions, drawing attention to the fact that 

 his association of certain important families on the evidence of the basal 

 approximation of vein 5 to 6 (rather than to 4) in the fore-wings would bring together 

 the most specialized forms of his (Tutt's) three original stirpes, of which he himself 

 admits that the roots are interchangeable and the selection arbitrary (vide p. 110). 

 Judging from the Tineidce we should not regard the neural character above alluded 

 to as more than a merely recent pliase, unreliable for the purpose of founding any 

 important divisions. Mr. Tutt's chapters have left the writer a victim to the 

 reflection, amounting to little less than delirium, that he can scarcely hope to master 

 the intricacies of classification without collecting the larvae, pupse and ova of some 

 200,000 species of exotic Micro-Lepidoptera, of which in his ignorance he is vainly 

 attempting to arrange the imagines according to their natural afiinities. Up to this 

 point in his book we feel bound to confess that although it gives ample evidence of 

 careful thought, of unlimited industry, and of some power of analysis, there is much 

 that we only partially understand and a good deal that comes under the category of 

 " not proven," but we must add that it is written in no aggressive spirit, and is 

 pervaded rather by a tone of modesty and self-effacement worthy of the truly 

 scientific enquirer, a quality which adds much to its merit. 



The second part of the book contains a vast fund of information. The 

 conscientious care with which Mr. Tutt searches out the histories of the various 

 species of Micropteryx and Nepticula, has provided the student with a perfect 

 compendium of all that has been written on the subject worth reading, and much 

 knowledge possessed by himself and others hitherto unpublished. The full 

 references and synonymy given in all cases, together with the original descriptions 

 (with one single exception*, which we know to have been unattainable in this 

 country) leave no excuse for ignorance or error in any future work undertaken in 



* I have now fortunately acquired a copj' of JD. NH. Ges. zu Hannover XIV (1865) containing 

 the description of Ncplicula p'jH, Glitz, which 1 am thus able to append to this review. — W. 



