236 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



more conspicuous than in the butterflies. There are probably at least ten 

 thousand species now living : countless myriads must have enlivened the 

 face of nature in past ages ; yet less than twenty have been found in a 

 fossil state ; and these fossil remains are so recent in geologic time, and 

 80 similar in structure to existing forms, that we only seem to be carrying 

 the present state of things a stage or two farther back, and becoming no 

 wiser than before concerning the ancestry of the group. We need only 

 say that the Lepidoptera as a whole go back to the Jvu'a, but that no 

 buttei'fly has been found before the tertiaries. It is not, however, with 

 the ancestry of the Lepidoptera as a whole that we are concerned, but 

 only with the highest members of the order, the families of buttei-flies. 



Since, then, paleontology refuses her aid, we must look within the 

 limits of the group itself for indications of its past history. In the New 

 Zoology, classification and ancestry go hand in hand ; indeed it is only as 

 present structure gives us a clue to past history that it possesses much in- 

 terest ; and habit and modes of life have such close connection with struc- 

 ture that they bear willing testimony where formerly they were debarred a 

 hearing. Our classifications are only expressions of confessedly imperfect 

 attempts to represent the natural affinities of animals, and natural 

 aflfinity is but another term for blood relationship, more or less remote. 

 It is therefore impossible, in these days, to consider classification without 

 assuming as a postulate that it is a present expression of a past history ; 

 and in that li2;ht no sinjjle feature is wanting; in interest. In fact, nothino; 

 in nature is without its meaning, its connection with the past ; and though 

 in itself alone we may despise a senseless stupid fact, yet when it is placed 

 beside others, with which it has harmonious relations, it becomes fruitful 

 in meaning. 



Drawing then upon our knowledge of the special structure of butterflies 

 as it is developed in this work, let us first attempt to draw a picture of the 

 primeval butterfly when it has so far advanced in structure toward the 

 tribes at present existing as to be fairly butterfly and not moth. This 

 original form must have possessed not only most of the features of the 

 lowest family, but also, in a nascent condition as it were, all or nearly all 

 the characters now common to the group, or which exist under some 

 modified form in this or that offshoot, such special peculiarities being sub- 

 sequent, more individualized developments of the ancestral type. With 

 this clue, a careful study of the structure of each stage will give a result 

 not far removed from the following. 



The egg was globular, with flattened base, its surface nearly smooth, 

 but covered with faint reticulations, growing more minute next the micro- 

 pyle, which formed a series of a few kite-shaped cells arranged sym- 

 metrically around a common centre. 



The caterpillar had a large, smooth, rounded head, a body composed of 



