578 Dr. Thomas Algernon Chapman on the 



If we take Mr. Meyrick's classification of Macros, 

 based on unstated grounds, but obviously chiefly on 

 venation, we find that he has collected together into his 

 Caradrinina all the Macro-heterocera with upright eggs, 

 with the single exception of the Notodontidx. 



It is interesting here, in passing, to note that though we 

 may gird at the earlier classifications, we have to admit 

 that, with no doubt some very important exceptions, they 

 had a grip of the main outlines, at least, amongst the 

 Macros. 



The four chief groups that I make on e^^ characters 

 are, as I have stated, largely the four old ones of Butter- 

 flies, Nocture, Geometrre, and Bombyces, and these are 

 also practically the groups framed by Mr. Meyrick, 

 though I think he has missed the real value of these 

 groups in placing the Notodontas and sundry Bombyces 

 in the Geometree. He would also, though that is a small 

 matter, have pleased me and many others had he kept the 

 time-honoured names for the groups. 



If we are to attach any value to the egg evidence, it is 

 clear that the Rhopalocera are not derived, as Mr. Meyrick 

 surmises, from any Pyralid form, since the Pyralids are of 

 a higher type than the Hesperids, and still belong very 

 markedly to the flat egg stirps, or one of them. The 

 pupse of the two groups are not derivable from a common 

 form, without going very far back, much further back, than 

 is implied in an immediate common ancestor. 



A consideration of great weight, that I ought perhaps 

 to have placed earlier, deserves attention, that is, the 

 great fixity of the two types of egg, the upright and the 

 flat, throughout the Macro-heterocera, which is still true, 

 if we add the Pyralidina, as of nearly Macro rank. There 

 is no clear indication, amongst all the upright forms, of 

 derivation from a flat form or vice versa. 



A few Geometrid forms are hai'dly even apparent excep- 

 tions to this, such, for instance, as Ennomos, where the 

 packing together of the eggs has placed them in a sloping 

 position, so that, so far as position goes, they can hardly 

 be called flat; and, further, there is a certain amount of 

 rim or crown round the micropylar end; but there is per- 

 haps no clearer instance of the secondaiy axes being 

 distinct amongst all the flat eggs than the eggs of 

 Ennomos present to us. 



Again, in the Lasiocampidse we find the flat egg 



