i897. SOME NEW BOOKS. 333 



the volume, is a useful and valuable piece of work. Mr. Kirby 

 specially insists that it is far from being exhaustive ; it would be un- 

 gracious therefore to point out omissions, but it may be stated that the 

 essay deals almost exclusively with the systematic and faunistic 

 aspect of the study of moths. After mentioning the more important 

 authors dealing with Lepidoptera in general, from Linne onwards, Mr. 

 Kirby furnishes references to the works which treat of the fauna of 

 special countries, arranged under the recognised zoological regions. 



In the introductory essay, Mr. Kirby gives a summary of the 

 more important schemes of classification which have been proposed 

 for moths, beginning with the tenth edition of the " Systema 

 Naturae." From the works of Fabricius, Schiffermiiller, and Hiibner, 

 the reader is led on to the systems of Stephens, Herrich-Schaffer, Bois- 

 duval, Guenee, and Walker. For this last writer Mr. Kirby has 

 a good word to say : — " his work, like that of other authors, differed 

 much at different times, and is by no means deserving of the sweep- 

 ing and wholesale condemnation it has received at the hands of 

 many whose own work is far from faultless." Coming then to modern 

 writers, Mr. Kirby deals briefly with the classifications of Snellen, 

 Hampson, Meyrick, and Comstock, founded mainly on the structure of 

 the imago, with Dyar's scheme based on the form of the larva, and 

 Chapman's on that of the pupa. The researches of these writers, 

 which have been often referred to in the pages of Natural Science, 

 have in many respects transformed the older views as to the affinities 

 of the families of moths. 



The last classification mentioned by Mr. Kirby is that suggested 

 in Professor Packard's elaborate memoir, a copy of which we have 

 just received. Though the title suggests only a monograph of North 

 American notodonts, there are a series of introductory essays, of which 

 the most important deals with the classification of the Lepidoptera 

 as a whole. Comstock divided the order into two primary divisions, 

 the Jugatae and Frenatae, the former of which includes two families, 

 the Micropterygidae and Hepialidae, characterised by the presence of 

 a jugum or fold of membrane on the inner margin of the forewing. 

 This structure, which occurs in the Trichoptera or caddis flies, is 

 unknown in all other moths, and Comstock therefore regarded the 

 two families named as forming a primary archaic division of the 

 Lepidoptera. A similar view is held by Hampson, Meyrick, and 

 Grote, the neuration of the hindwings in these families agreeing with 

 that of the forewings, while in all other moths the number of nervures 

 in the hindwings has become reduced. Packard, however, considers, 

 with Chapman and Tutt, that the mouth-organs of the imago and 

 the structure of the pupa are of greater importance than the form and 

 neuration of the wings. He agrees with Chapman's division of the 

 old genus Micropteryx into two families — the Eriocephalidae and 

 Micropterygidae ; and pointing out that the tiny moths included in 

 the former of these have mandibles not reduced to a vestigial state, 

 and maxillae in which the typical parts of those jaws as developed 

 in the lower insect-orders can be recognised (an observation first 

 due to Walker) he ranks them as the primary archaic division of the 

 moths (Lepidoptera laciniata) and sets over against them all the 

 other insects of the order (Lepidoptera haustellata). Then he divides 

 this latter section also into two very unequal groups. The Micro- 

 pterygidae (sens, str.), whose pupae have limbs entirely free, like those of 

 a caddis-fly pupa, and large functional mandibles, form the group 

 Paleolepidoptera, while all the other families are united in the group 



