Acentropus. 127 



thrice-told tale, I have thought it worth while to show 

 that, so far as published authority goes, there is an over- 

 whelming preponderance of opinion against him, and that 

 those who are against him have given very good reasons 

 for their opinions. We are not told by whom the " con- 

 venient assumption " has been made ; and though doubt- 

 less the presence of the wing-scales has been alleged as 

 one ground, and an important one, for regarding Acen- 

 tropus as a moth, yet it is but one circumstance among 

 many, and it seems to me inaccurate to say, that any one 

 has *' utilized the assumption to set up the hobby '^ in 

 question, for no author has relied exclusively or even 

 mainly on the presence of wing-scales, but everyone has 

 placed far greater dependence on other (less popular and 

 more technical) characters. The tippets and wing-bi-istle 

 originally set up the hobby. The passage about extended 

 and careful observation and skill in logical deduction, 

 leads one to enquire. Can Newman, when he penned it, 

 have read the papers of Speyer ? • 



Let me ask, what is to happen when the " standing 

 assumption" is " knocked down again ? '^ The assump- 

 tion is, that wing-scales are confined to Lepidoptera. 

 Let us get rid of that assumption (if anybody has made 

 it), and let us assume the contrary, that wing-scales are 

 not confined to Lepidoptera. From the premises, (1), 

 Acentropus has wing-scales, and (2), wing-scales are not 

 confined to Lepidoptera, are we expected to draw the 

 conclusion that Acentropus is not Lepidopterous ? I am 

 not " skilled in logical deductions,^' but it seems to me, 

 that when the assumed assumption has been knocked 

 down again, the argument in favour of the Lepidopterous 

 conclusion remains untouched. 



But probably it is not the "assumption," but the 

 " hobby " which is intended to be pugilistically dealt 

 with. Let us, then, look for a moment at the arguments 

 by which the "hobby'' has been hitherto "knocked 

 down." Newman's reasons are given at p. 8216 of 'The 

 Zoologist,' and appear to be four in number : — (1) , " scales 

 far more like those of Lepidoptera occur on the elytra of 

 a thousand beetles ; " (2) , the thoracic tippets do not 

 "obtain throughout" the Lepidoptera; (3), the wing- 

 bristle " tends as much to unite Acentropxis with the 

 Hymenoptera as with the Lepidoptera;" and (4), the 

 characters in which the pupa of a moth differs from that 



