THE ATHALIA GROUP OF THE GENUS MELIT^A, 261 



rally useful they will be found, and personally I Lave learnt 

 more from .the pencil sketches drawn by Mr. Heron, partly for 

 his own guidance and partly for my information, than from all 

 the complicated illustrations that I have ever seen. A further 

 advantage that the new Geneva preparations have over M. 

 Jullien's and the usual English split and spread forms is that 

 they are presented as nearly as possible in the natural position. 

 Details of structure are best compared by means of micro- 

 photographs of the separate parts, the greatest care, of course, 

 being again necessary to present them for comparison in exactly 

 the same position ; this also is to some extent provided for in the 

 illustrations to Dr. Reverdin's paper. No such illustrations, 

 however, exist as yet, so far as I am aware, of the group now 

 under consideration, and the very incomplete information which 

 I have been able to get together has been drawn from various 

 sources of varying degrees of trustworthiness, so that I feel it 

 impossible for the present to go into details on the matter, and 

 merely regard the few following notes as suggestions which may 

 very possibly require further modification. In some respects, at 

 any rate, the armature of M. asteria supports the theory that 

 this is the oldest form of this group, some details appearing to 

 be modified from it in some species, and others in others ; 

 M.parthenie comes nearer to it tban M. athalia, a fact that did 

 not surprise me, as I had concluded on other grounds that it was 

 probably the older form ; M. cleione, contrary to expectation, is 

 apparently nearer to M. athalia than to M. jMvtJienie ; M. varia 

 adds to the otherwise extreme probability of its specific dis- 

 tinctness from M. parthenie, and possibly may be held to sup- 

 j)ort its nearness to M. aurelia. The identity of M. dictynnoides 

 in this respect with M. aurelia seems to indicate a less recent 

 date for the former species than Hormuzaki has supposed on 

 other, and in my opinion probably sufficient, grounds, to which 

 I must refer again ; the identity, again, of M. hritomartis (from 

 Reazziuo) with M. dictynna certainly shows the close relation- 

 ship between the two, though I have previously given reasons 

 which still appear to me sufficient to place their specific distinct- 

 ness beyond question ; it would also seem to indicate a greater 

 distance between M. athalia and M. hritomartis than might 

 otherwise have been expected ; and, lastly, the comparative 

 anatomy in this respect of M. deione var. berisalensis gives some 

 slight support to the theory that the latter is a distinct species, 

 and is perhaps an indication that it is at any rate on its way to 

 becoming so ; though, comparing the two with M. athalia, it 

 would probably be truer to derive M. deione from M. berisalensis 

 than the latter from the former, a theory to which their geo- 

 graphical distribution certainly lends support. I must, however, 

 be allowed to repeat that the second-hand material at my dis* 

 posal is drawn from sources too varied to make comparisons very 



