March .897.] GrOTE : CLASSIFICATION OF THE SaTURNIIDES. 45 



the rest. And this proves the vahie, that the character does not 

 fail. * 



The adverse statement fails, when I show, that in the larval special- 

 ization (the diminution of the tubercles and armature), the antennal 

 structure (the attainment of the equally lengthy pectinations), the neura- 

 tion and the complexity in the attachment of the cocoon, a consonant 

 direction is held and a perfectional advance throughout the SaturniidcB 

 (including Hemileuca). Dr. Dyar's statement that I have transposed the 

 position accorded by him to Hemileuca and Aglia is strictly correct and, 

 as I try to show here, entirely defensible. The former, Dr. Dyar would 

 place with the Automeris group on account of the stinging spines. But 

 I prefer to consider the eversible glands and stinging spines of the cater- 

 pillar as here characters of convergence. Their presence is explainable 

 by the consideration that both Hemileuca and Automeris have probably 

 arisen or diverged from a common point nearer the basis of the phyl- 

 lum. It is easier to see that the stinging spines are a subordinate char- 

 acter when we find them again in unrelated groups: e. g. Apodidce. It 

 is not possible for me to "suppose that vein IVg has moved towards 

 IVj in Hemileuca separately from the type of Attacus and Saturnia 

 where this process is congenital." Since I show that the type is fully 

 attained in Hemileuca, it is plainly already congenital in the Hemileu- 

 cinoi. The real morphological value of this ''movement" is strangely 

 underrated by Dr. Dyar. In reality it is profound. It amounts to a 

 reorganization of the wing through the action of the Radius upon an- 

 other pattern. In a paper subsequently read by me at the Frankfort 

 meeting, I have tried to trace the process by which the lower and more 

 generalized Agliid wing has passed into the higher, more specialized 

 Saturniid type. The difference, as we now find it, is, relatively speak- 

 ing, primary, palingenetic, not adaptory and secondary, as appears to me 

 the change of the armature into stinging spines. 



With reference to Aglia, which I believe to be a specialized and 

 very much isolated type, I regard it as having left the main Agliid 

 stem before the devolution of Citheronia as we now find this group. 

 The loss of the pair of anal tubercles is to be set down solely to the 

 Cither oniince. I do not derive Algia from Citheronia, but from the 

 stem before Citheronia. Dr. Dyar charges me with entertaining more 



* Since my paper went to press, the Roemc-r Museum lias received additional 

 material of South American Satiirniides in all stages. In a paper read September 

 23d, at the Frankfort meeting, I show that in all the new material the characters 

 pointed out by me hold good and sustain my general classification. 



