194 THE entomologist's RECORt). 



of it under certain illuminations, and so here the larva is not at all 

 like a leaf, but many leaves on a tree will look exactly like some 

 particular larva does as it rests amongst them. In the same way the 

 head does not resemble the buds at all closely, yet I have fancied I saw 

 a larval head, when after all it was only a group of buds. Perhaps the 

 most typical instance of this indirect mimicry is in the larva of Acmnicta 

 h'jiorina, which, seated beneath an alder leaf, looks exactly as if a spot 

 of sunshine were falling upon the upper side of the leaf. 



The pupa is a little paler than the larva, and of a bluish-green, 

 and often has sundry white spots on the wings, but as I have 

 not seen the pupa in its natural surroimdings, it would be mere 

 speculation to suggest the precise aspects of the leaves and branches 

 from the resemblance to which they derive protection ; but, since the 

 young shoots are now forward, a different colour from that of the 

 larva is obviously a probable necessity. The larva, by the way, never 

 eats the young shoots and leaves, though they are often advancing 

 before the larva is full-fed. 



( To hr cnjitinued.) 



On the Classification of the Lepidoptera. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



It will be in the minds of our readers that in the Ent. Record (vol. 

 viii., pp. 25-29) there is an article on " The relationship of the lower 

 Lepidoptera with the Trichoptera," and in the Trans. Knt. Soc.Lnnd., 

 1895, is another, entitled, " An attempt to correlate some recent Clas- 

 sifications of the Lepidoptera." Dr. Chapman's paper^'' in the Trcois. 

 Ent. Soc. Lond., 1896, and the recent work of Dyar and Packard, 

 have pushed the matter of the classification of the Lepidoptera a little 

 further than indicated in those papers. 



The " old order of classification so long accepted," as a well-known 

 entomologist once fondly called it, was the division of the Lepidoptera 

 into groups, according to the size of the insects, viz.: — (1) Macro- 

 LEPiDOPTEKA. (2) ]\IicR0-LEPiD0PTEKA. It will be remembered that, on 

 comparing Chapman's results with those of Comstock, Dyar, etc., we 

 came to the conclusion, which we adopted, that Chapman's primary 

 division of the Lepidoptera into Incomplete. andOr.TECT.?^., was preferable 

 to Comstock's division into Juc4at.e andFRENAT.i: i which, indeed, Hamp- 

 son had already shown to be untenable\ from the facts that : (1) The 

 two super-families — Hepialides and Micropterygides— comprised in 

 JuGAT.E, although maintaining many ancestral features in common, 

 were in reality in much closer relationship with other super-families 

 than with each other, the Micropterygides with the Adelides, the 

 Hepialides with the Cossides and Zeuzerides. (2) These two super- 

 families formed the bases of two different evolutionary stems, each 

 bearing many branches, with which they are more naturally related 

 (and hence classified) than with each other. We were inclined to 

 agree with Chapman's acquiescence iji the separation of the Eriocepha- 

 LiDEs, as a separate sub-order, from the rest of the Lepidoptera, and 

 have provisionally accepted Packard's title — Proto-lepidoptera — for 



* "On the Phyloj^'eny and Evolution of the Lepidoptera from a pupal and oval 

 standpoint, " T. A. Chapman, M.D., F.E.S., Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1896. 



