Taxonomic value of Genital Armature in Lepidoptera. 331 



two-thirds of the lateral area, and is excised along the 

 dorsum up to the girdle or nearly up to the girdle, the 

 lateral cheeks being exceedingly large and broad, their 

 fore apex being edged with a cluster or short line of long 

 erect formidable spines, which are carried on a long arm 

 from the rear of the tegumen that encircles the lower and 

 front margin, lying on it so closely as to appear to form 

 an integral part of it ; whilst there is another peculiar 

 process in the rear of these, the clasps are pyriform in all 

 species, and the aedoeagus in metophis and exilis is quite 

 extraordinarily similar, but in barberae it differs. In the 

 two former it is bulbous with a small curved tapering 

 extremity at the rear and a straight narrow wedge-shaped 

 tip, below which from near the middle of the bulb a longish 

 narrow horn is developed with its lower apical edge 

 serrated, this extends almost as far in front as the tip itself. 



In barberae the aedoeagus is so totally different in shape 

 and in most of its details, that it constrained me to think 

 that it must belong to another though very closely allied 

 genus. I therefore looked up its other structural characters 

 and found they confirmed my first impressions ; the 

 neuration of the costal area is quite different from 

 Brephidium. It certainly needs another genus for its 

 reception, and I propose for barberae the name Oraidium 

 in contrast with Scudder's name. In Oraidium barberae 

 veins 6 and 7 rise from the upper apex of the cell, and 7 

 is not stalked, 8 and 9 are absent, 11 is bent up to almost 

 or quite touch 12. In Brephidium 8 and 9 are stalked, 

 rising from the cell well before the apex, whilst 7 is absent 

 and 11 is a short obsolescent bar anastomosing with 12. 



The armature of Oraidium differs in that the arms, 

 bearing at their tips the great spines, rise from the lower 

 front angle of the tegumen and are projected straight for- 

 ward obliquely, not encircUng the lateral cheeks ; the 

 aedoeagus is saddle-shaped at the rear, descending abruptly 

 from the ridge vertically downwards, and then near the 

 lower edge the tip is produced forwards in a very long and 

 very narrow tube for quite double the length of its saddle 

 portion, whilst from the lower base is projected forwards 

 a similar equally long and yet narrower tube. The alliance 

 of the two genera will be seen in the lower long horn-like 

 processes which are very unusual emanating from the 

 position of these organs. From the smallest Ruralid we 

 will go to the largest, viz. Liphyra brassolis, Westw. 



