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LEPIDOPTERA. — HETEROCERA. 361 
The second general section of the Lepidoptera, that of the HeTERo- 
cERA Boisd., corresponding with the Linnzan genera Sphinx and 
Phalena, derives its name from the diversified formation of the 
antennz, which are never terminated by a club, like those of the 
butterflies, but are generally setaceous, filiform, or fusiform, those of 
the males being moreover often furnished with more or less developed 
lateral appendages, forming branches; the wings are ordinarily 
furnished with the spring and socket apparatus, above described : 
the caterpillars are even more varied than in the Rhopalocera, but 
the pupe are. generally of a conical form, without angular projections, 
and they are ordinarily enclosed in a cocoon of varied construction, 
the quiescent state being often undergone in the ground. The group 
thus constructed will be seen to correspond with the genus Phalzena 
alone, of the earlier editions of Linneus’s Systema Nature ; with the 
sections Crepuscularia and Nocturna of Latreille, and with the Cre- 
puscularia, Pomeridiana, Nocturna, Semidiurna, and Vespertina of 
Stephens. * (See ante, p. 325.) 
It is here most especially that we have to lament our great igno- 
rance of exotic groups in their preparatory, as well as of their precise 
structure in the imago states; and it is owing to this that we are 
unable to form due notions of the relative value of the characters 
upon which the various primary groups of moths have been con- 
structed, and are thereby prevented from defining these various 
groups so accurately as is done in other and better studied tribes ; 
for instance, it is impossible not to be convinced, upon the most 
casual glance, that the four groups, of which the Crepuscularia have 
been composed, are held together by the slightest ties, and yet we are 
not sufficiently acquainted with the general grouping of the Nocturna 
to decide upon the propriety of cutting up the former group, and placing 
its dismemberments amongst them, or retaining them asa heteroge- 
neous group. Urania, Castnia, Agarista, Sphinx, Avgeria, and Anthro- 
cera (Zygena Fab.), are groups of equal value amongst themselves ; 
and on account of the peculiar conformation of their antenne, they were 
united into one group by Linnzus, who, it is well known, considered 
this character as of the highest importance. Take, for instance, 
the three English groups, Sphinx, A‘geria, and Anthrocera, and we 
* Mr. Bird (Ent. Mag. vol. ii. p. 40.) has objected to Mr. Stephens’s employ- 
ment of these terms, having captured the males of a vast number of the Pomeridian 
genera during the night, they having been attracted to the light of a lamp. 
