Dr. T. A. Chapman on Micropteryx. 311 



character I call attention to might, perhaps, alone, justify 

 its ordinal separation, but, taken with the other characters, 

 seems to remove it entirely from the Lepidoptera. In- 

 deed, it remains difficult to suggest that Micropteryx has 

 any lepidopterous character except the possession of scales. 

 The neuration is also, perhaps, prima, facie, lepidopterous; 

 but both this particular neuration and the possession of 

 scales are to be found in insects having no claim to be 

 lepidopterous. I have been aware of this particular 

 structural character for many years, but only recently has 

 it occurred to me to co-ordinate it with the other structures 

 in the genus. 



The Order Lepidoptera is specially distinguished by 

 the female genitalia possessing two openings — a terminal 

 one for o viposition , and one in the 8th segment for pairing ; 

 and in connection with this only nine segments can be 

 counted in the abdomen of the female imago, instead of 

 ten as in the larva pupa and male imago. 



I hope in another communication to discuss how the 

 missing segment is to be accounted for; this is, how- 

 ever, immaterial for the present purpose, which is to 

 compare the apparently nine segments with two genital 

 openings of all female Lepidoptera, with the ten segments 

 and no genital opening except in the 10th segment in 

 Micropteryx. This fact by itself seems to be sufficient 

 to prevent Micropteryx being classified as belonging to the 

 Lepidoptera, even in a sub-order. 



There is a point that I ought, perhaps, to deal with. 

 Cholodkowsky * says that Nematois metallicus (scabiosellus) 

 differs from other Lepidoptera in that the female has only 

 one sexual opening, and Prof. W. Hatchett Jackson t 

 appears to accept this conclusion. Collating Cholod- 

 kowsky 's description of the anatomy of the Nematois 

 metallicus with my own observation of the structures in 

 the Aculeate Lepidoptera, the first thing that occurs to me 

 is that Cholodkowsky did not appear to understand that 

 the inner rods with their dagger point belonged to a differ- 

 ent segment to that of the outer rods, and in oviposition 

 travelled beyond them, and as well as piercing formed also 

 the ovipositor. The ovipositing opening is near the end 

 of the inner rods (terminal segment). He describes the 



* " Zeitschrift f. Wissench.," Zoologie, vol. xlii, p. 562 (1885). 

 t " Morphology of the Lepidoptera," Trans. Linn. Soc., Zool. 

 2d, vol. v, p. 149. 



