NOTES ON BUTTERFLY I'UP^, BIC. 125 



I visited the scene of my camp again in tlie late autumn. It was a 

 lovely late October day, the leaves all ripely floating to the ground amid 

 a stillness broken only by the noise of dropping chestnut burrs. The 

 air itself was saturated with hazy light, the memory of summer days. 

 Some autumn S})anner moths were lazily fluttering about, coloured like 

 the yellow leaves. No weary moral points this story. I am gone, but 

 each year my Noctuids I'cappear where the trees are mirrored in the 

 waters of the Lake by Angola. 



jJotes on Butterfly Pupse, Witli some peniarl^s oii the 

 Phylogenesis of the I^liopalocera. 



By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., KE.S. 

 {Continued from page 107). 



The Nymphalids agree with the Pierids in two very important 

 points ; the egg is ribbed, and the pupa possesses only lateral motion 

 — all antero-posterior movement having been lost, although, from its 

 manner of suspension, free movement in all directions would have been 

 of advantage to it. Since the loss of this movement must have resulted 

 from suspension by a girth, it seems certain that the Nymplialid could 

 not have acquired it independently. It forms a remarkable illustration 

 of the law, that movement once lost is never regained. 



If we imagine a Pierid pupa to have got rid of the girth and to 

 hang by the tail, we have substantially a Nymplialid pupa, the 

 duplication of the head-spines and some other changes being of a 

 minor character. 



A Nymplialid, then, is a Pierid that has got rid of the girth ; and 

 here it is of much interest to note that the Papilionid made an effort in 

 the same direction, but only succeeded in traversing a short part of the 

 distance, evolving the remarkable form we And in Thais. 



The account given of the method of suspension of the pupa of Thais 

 in Scudder's monumental work is only at second-hand, and appears to 

 me to be erroneous. The existence of a double set of hooks on the 

 head-})rominence of this pupa is so unusual and extraordinary a pheno- 

 menon, that one accepted without hesitation Scudder's statement that 

 this is entangled in a special silken pad. Subsequently, however, the 

 examination of a consignment of pupse of Thais led me to entertain 

 great doubts as to its accuracy, and to think that the nose-hooks and 

 their use, extraordinary as they still are, might yet be so explained as 

 to permit the ranging of the jiupal structures and habit with those of 

 the Papilionids, and might enable us to understand how their develop- 

 ment was brought about. 



According to the account given in Scudder's work, the pu})a has 

 tln*ee points of attachment — a pad for the tail, a girth for the body, and 

 a pad for the nose. Now we know that in Papilio, Pleris, etc., there 

 are only two — one for the tail, and the girth — whilst the line of 

 evolution is in the direction of a loss of the girth, and thus of a 

 diminution of the number of points of attachment (Nymphalids). 

 These two points themselves are, no doubt, the result of a gradual 

 modification of the cocoon of the Ilesperids ; it seems to me, tlierefore, 

 most improbable that a third point of attachment should be evolved. 



An examination of the pupa3 referred to, shows that the nose-silk is 

 not a new structure but is the girth slipped forwards ; also that the 



