THE LIFE-HISTORY OF A LEIPOPTEKOUS INSECT. 247 



translated in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History for Dec. 1892. 

 It is much too extensive to notice in full, but the following conclusions 

 are particularly interesting. The author considers that: — "1. The 

 head of insects contains more than four ])rotozonites, probably six, of 

 which one is pre-oral, but the rest are post-oral. 2. The antennae of 

 insects belong to the first post-oral segment, and are entirely homolo- 

 gous with the remaining ventral extremities. They do not correspond 

 to the antennae of Peripatus, but probably to the chelicerae of spiders, 

 and perhaps to the second pair of antenna? of Crustacea. 3. Since the 

 possibility that a number of segments in the germinal streak of different 

 Arthropods have disappeared is not excluded, a homology of the mouth- 

 parts of the different classes of Arthropoda cannot at present be set up. 

 4. The abdominal appendages of the Insectan germinal streak (including 

 the cerci) are homologous with the thoracic legs. Herein it makes no 

 difference whether these appendages are attached to the middle, at the 

 side, at the front or hind margin (are meso-, pleuro-, pro-, or opistho- 

 static in the terminology of Graber), provided only that their cavity is 

 immediately continuous with that of the somite to which they belong. 

 The fact that the abdominal appendages usually remain unsegmented 

 in nowise tends to show that they are not of the nature of limbs, since, 

 for instance, the mandibles also are unsegmented. 5. Many of the ab- 

 dominal appendages of larvae and perfect insects are homologous with 

 the thoracic legs, even when they are secondary in ontogeny. 6. The 

 primitive function of the first pair of the abdominal appendages was 

 ambulatory, as also that of the remaining appendages. The ancestors 

 of the insects were therefore undoubtedly homopod, not heteropod. 

 7. The many-legged insect larvae are to be derived from the six-legged 

 just as little as are, conversely, the hexapod larva? from the polypod ; 

 both forms developed independently of one another. 8. The em- 

 bryonic envelopes of the insects probably corresjDond to the remains of 

 a trochospere." 



It may be added that in Graber's " Vergleichende studien am 

 keimstreif der insekten," the antenna? are shown to be decidedly post- 

 oral in their origin," and it is highly probable that they " corresj^ond to 

 the second pair of antenna? in Crustacea," a conclusion jjractically 

 reached by Cholodkovsky in No. 2 above. 



URRENT NOTES. 



Mr. Harrison G. Dyar offers some very useful criticisms on 

 Hampson's Moths of India in the current number of the Entomological 

 Neios, which should not be lost sight of by British lepidopterists. 

 Some of the suggestions relate to the genera of many of our common 

 British moths. There is a very suggestive note comparing some of 

 Hampson's generic nomenclature with Kirby's ; it appears to us remark- 

 able that, in the search for truth, men working in the same room and 

 with the chance of continually exchanging opinions and discussing 

 points of difference, cannot agi-ee as to the correct names to use. 



Mr. W. Denison Roebuck, F.L.S., the editor of The Naturalist, has 

 given us already a Bibliography of the records of Lepidoptera published 

 with regard to the north of England for the years 1884—1890. The 



