334 NATURAL SCIENCE. May. 



Neolepidoptera, which again is divided, mainly on the lines suggested 

 by Chapman, into a lower series of families with incomplete, and a 

 higher series with obtect, pupae. 



A specially valuable section in Packard's work is his description 

 with figures of a number of larvae and pupae of tineoid moths, which 

 he considers worthy of division into ten or fifteen families. He 

 gives in conclusion a tentative genealogical tree (copied in Mr. 

 Kirby's work). A comparison of this with the genealogy given in 

 the first volume of Hampson's " Moths of India " is interesting 

 and suggestive. Though there are numerous divergencies in points 

 of detail, both writers agree in placing the Saturniidae, I^Joctuidae, 

 Agaristidae, Geometriidae, Sphingidae, and Notodontidse higher than 

 most of the old group Bombyces, and both agree in the near affinity 

 of several " bombycine " families — as the Cossidae, Sesiidae, and 

 Zygaenidae — with the so-called " microlepidoptera." Packard in- 

 cludes the butterflies in his tree, and derives them through the 

 Castniidae from the Hypsidae. This view cannot be maintained in 

 face of Chapman's recent work on the pupae of butterflies, which 

 shows the origin of the group from low lepidopterous forms in- 

 dependently of the higher moths. 



The sections of Professor Packard's memoir which deal specially 

 with the North American notodonts are worthy of the highest praise, 

 and should act as a stimulus to British workers to investigate their 

 own insect fauna in an equally thorough style. The species are 

 described at length, in most cases in all their stages, and are excellently 

 illustrated with coloured plates and structural figures. The only 

 unsatisfactory feature in the illustrations is to be found in many of 

 the photographs of moths from actual specimens ; the results of this 

 process are often indistinct and the figures would be nearly useless 

 for purposes of identification. Specially valuable are the detailed 

 accounts of life-histories ; and, in a very suggestive introductory essay 

 on the incongruence between the larval and adult characters, the 

 author points out how in a certain species of a genus, the cater- 

 pillar may become vastly modified in its later stages, while the 

 imago agrees closely with that of an insect whose larva retains 

 primitive characters throughout its growth. From some of the 

 modifications, believed to be primitively adaptational, which occur 

 regularly at a certain stage in the life of a caterpillar, the author 

 argues for the inheritance of acquired characters. 



In his essay on the distribution of the notodonts Professor 

 Packard objects to the term " Nearctic" of Sclater as well as 

 to " Sonoran " of Merriam. He divides North America up to and 

 including Merriam's Transition zone into four provinces : the Appa- 

 lachian (N.E. and Central States— S. Canada) Austroriparian (S.E. 

 and Gulf States) Campestrian (West Central and Pacific States) and 

 Mexican. There are eleven genera found in the eastern provinces 

 which are absent from the Campestrian, while no genus is peculiar 

 to the latter province. Nine genera are common to Eurasia and 

 North America, eight are peculiar to North America, while only 

 five are common to North and South America. It is of interest to 

 note that while most of the genera common to the Old and New 

 Worlds are characteristically northern in America, none of the eight 

 peculiar North American genera range northwards beyond Merriam's 

 Transition zone. The division of the insects into a Holarctic and a 

 Sonoran fauna would thus appear to be justified. 



Geo. H. Carpenter. 



