75 
An idea that the affinities in the Lepidoptera are net-like and 
not, as they seem to me, branch-like, has excused the classification, 
especially of the Bombycidae, adopted by v. Heineman and Stau- 
dinger, by which Subfamily groups are accorded Family rank, and 
so incongruous a sequence is adopted, that this would seem the end 
sought, rather than a natural arrangement of the Moths. No or 
little allowance is made for comparative characters, and the severity 
of the generic classification has permitted no adequate comprehen- 
sion of these softer zodlogical forms. We miss any reference to 
American genera (without which perhaps no true limitation can be 
decided upon), either as illustrated by American writers or by the 
pens of European authors who have investigated so largely the Lepi- 
dopterous Faunae of other continents. v. Heineman establishes 
the European genus Scodra, without reference to Guenée’s Leptina, 
from America, which it seems should have been compared.' On the 
other hand Packard, in 1864, has indicated in several cases the com- 
parative generic position of European Bombycidae, and, in 1865, we 
have drawn attention to relationships between the Sphingidae of 
either continent, and in particular to the position which the EKuro- 
pean Macrosila convolvuli and Sphinx ligustri occupy with regard 
to the American species of the two genera. 
I give here a catalogue of our North American species referable 
to Herrich-Schaeffer’s Family Cymatophorina, for which I prefer 
Boisduval’s earlier term, and regard them as forming a sub-family 
of the Noctuidae. Alone of any of the divisions of the family 
heretofore proposed, they possess a distinctive structural feature, 
found in the course of the costal nervure of the secondaries. 
1 Auf Seite 17, v. Heineman’s Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, steht, Z. 9, v. 
unten, ‘‘bei der Hesperiengattung Cyclopaedes die Hinterschienen auch mit Mittelspornen.”’ 
Schlagt man, Seite 115, d. Gattung auf, so findet sich gerade des Gegentheil angegeben: ‘‘ Hin- 
terschienen nur mit Endspornen.”’ 
