INTRODUCTION. XXXMl 



George's later works. Cf. especially an article in the " Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History " for October, 1894, in which 

 he divides the Lepidoptcra into 41 families, adopting in the 

 main the views of Chapman and Comstock. 



In 1895, Prof. Comstock, who had previously published 

 some important observations on the classification of Lepidopiera, 

 especially with reference to the Hepialidce and Micropterygida>, 

 gave them fuller development and publicity in his " Manual 

 for the Study of Insects," published at Ithaca, N.Y., in 1895. 

 Here the classification, although the families are considerably 

 rearranged, follows on the whole a reversed order, and 

 terminates with the Butterflies, as was proposed by Denis and 

 SchiffermiiUer as long ago as 1776. Professor Comstock 

 attaches very great importance to the presence or absence of a 

 jugum, which is a small lobe projecting backwards from the 

 fore-wing near its base, and extending under the costal margin 

 of the hind-wing, while the greater part of the inner margin of 

 the fore-wing overlaps the hind-wing.* With this substitute 

 for the usual frenulum is correlated a practical identity of 

 neuration in the fore and hind-wings. Two families only 

 combine these characters, the HepialidcB and Microptcyygido:, 

 and though they are sufficiently dissimilar in many other 

 respects, Prof. Comstock commences the Lepidoptera with 

 them, as a sub-order, under the name of Jugahe. These 

 families are supposed to be two isolated groups that have alone 

 survived from the primitive form of Lepidoptera which existed 

 in earlier geological ages. It is hardly necessary to point out 

 that this is purely assumption, or at best, more or less well- 

 founded deduction, quite unsupported at present by any 

 evidence derived from the fossil remains of Lepidoptera, which 



* This inner margin does not overlap in all the llcpialiJcs ; not in 

 Ilepialus humiili, for example. 



