411 



conducted this vSummer will demonstrate whether this substance can 

 be used as a substitute for Paris green, to which it is verj^ superior in 

 the matter of fineness of division, and will cost about one-half less. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



THE CLASSIFICATION OF LEPIDOPTERA. 



The absence of a rational classification of the order Lepidoptera, 

 based upon the structural features of all parts of the body, instead of 

 upon shape, size, mouth-])arts, leg-armature, and wing-venation only, 

 has always been a source of wonder to students. Of late the genitalia 

 have been used in certain groups; but no systematic study of the struc- 

 ture of the order as a whole has been attempted by any lepidopterist. 

 It is not strange that a broad and careful man like Prof. J. H. Com- 

 stock should have halted in dismay in the preparation of a text-book 

 on entomology on reaching the point Avhere it became necessary, in 

 pursuance of his general plan, to introduce an analytical table sep- 

 arating the families of Lepidoptera. Perhaps Professor Comstock may 

 have remembered an early experience, when, in 1879, he sent the same 

 moth in succession to four different specialists in Lepidoptera. One 

 determined it as a new genus of Tineina, another as a new genus of 

 Tortricina, a third as a new genus of Pyralidae, and a fourth as a new 

 genus of Zygrenid?e ! 



However this may be. Professor Comstock saw the necessity for a 

 new classification, and in his admirable essay entitled '' Evolution and 

 Taxonomy," published in the Wilder Birthday Book, and reviewed on 

 pages 272, 273 of volume vi of Insect Life, he gives a tentative new 

 classification of the Lepidoptera, based almost entirely upon wing- vena- 

 tion and the special structures by which the wings are held together. 

 Although this classification is based practical!}' upon but one element 

 of the complex, it was reached only after profound study of the problem 

 upon evolutional grounds, and it was published more as an illustrative 

 record of the results obtained by his work than as a classification to be 

 accepted and practically used. The author expressed his anticipation, 

 however, that equally careful study of other elements would lead to the 

 same result, and that the proposed classification would be strengthened 

 thereby. The proposed classification was so revolutionary in its char- 

 acter that it united two families which had previously been placed 

 nearly at opposite extremes of the old system, viz, the Micropterygidpe 

 and the Hepialidiie, forming a suborder which he called the Jugatte. It 

 is very fitting that further study of other points should be undertaken 

 by -Mr. V. L. Kellogg, who has been associated with Professor Comstock 

 at Stanford University. In a paper published in the Kansas rniversity 

 Quarterly for July, 1891, and reviewed on page 119 of this volume, he 

 considered especially the clothing of the wings of Lepidoptera, and 

 ascertained that the results of his observations confirmed in a broad 



