SOME NEW ENTOMOLOGICAL BOOKS. 229 



rough forecast of the future classification of moths. Professor 

 Comstock, struck by some peculiarities presented by the Hepia- 

 lidae, Micropterygidae (and Eriocephalidae), recently proposed to 

 separate them from all other Lepidoptera as a sub-order Jugatae. 

 Comstock's discrimination in making this separation met with 

 general approval. The character on which the group Jugatae is 

 based is, however, comparatively trivial, and its possession is not 

 sufficient, as pointed out by Packard, to justify the close asso- 

 ciation of Hepialidae and Micropterygidae, which, in certain 

 important respects, are the most dissimilar of moths. The 

 characters possessed by the two families in common may be 

 summarised by saying that theVings and wing-bearing segments 

 remain in a low stage of development. In nearly all other 

 characters the two families are widely different. Packard has 

 therefore, while accepting Comstock's separation of the families 

 in question, proposed a different combination. He considers 

 that Eriocephalidae should be separated from all others as ' Proto- 

 lepidoptera ' or 'Lepidoptera Laciniata,' while the whole of 

 the other Lepidoptera, comprised under the term ' Lepidoptera 

 Haustellata,' are divided into Palaeolepidoptera (consisting only 

 of Micropterygidae) and Neolepidoptera, comprising all Lepido- 

 ptera (inclusive of Hepialidae) except the Eriocephalidae and 

 Micropterygidae. The question is rendered more difficult by the 

 very close relations that exist between Micropterygidae and a 

 sub-order, Trichoptera, of Neuroptera. Dr. Chapman, by a 

 sketch of the classification of pupae, and Dyer, by one on larval 

 stages, have made contributions to the subject ; but the know- 

 ledge of early stages and metamorphosis is so very imperfect, 

 that the last two memoirs can be considered only as preliminary 

 sketches ; as indeed seem to have been the wishes of the authors 

 themselves. 



" Simultaneously with the works above alluded to, Mr. Mey- 

 rick has given a new classification of the order. We allude in 

 other pages to various points in Mr. Meyrick's classification, 

 which is made to appear more revolutionary than it really is, in 

 consequence of the radical changes in nomenclature combined 

 with it. 



" As regards the various aggregates of families that are 

 widely known in literature by the names Bombyces, Sphinges, 

 Noctuae, Geometres, Pyrales, we need only remark that they are 

 still regarded as to some extent natural. Their various limits 

 being the subject of discussion and at present undecided, the 

 groups are made to appear more uncertain than is really the 

 case. The group that has to suffer the greatest change is the 

 old Bombyces. This series comprises the great majority of those 

 moths that have diurnal habits. In it there were also included 

 several groups of moths the larvae of which feed in trunks of 

 trees or in the stems of plants, such as Cossidae, that will doubt- 



