180 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



again forked before the apex of the wing, emitting two branches 

 towards it. In all the three forms the costal nervure is very short 

 and fine, and terminates on the costa near the base, often hardly 

 distinct ; the dorsal nervure is not furcate towards the base, and is 

 not double. What Herrich-Schaffer calls " Rippe Ib," and Zeller 

 and Frey call the fine upper nervure of the fork, is the delicate fold 

 of the wing, which approaches the dorsal nervure in the middle 

 and usually unites with it, although sometimes it remains perceptibly 

 distinct. 



" The posterior wings have only one median nervure, which forks, 

 sooner or later, and runs with the two forks to the margins or towards 

 the apex of the wing, besides this there are one costal and two dorsal 

 nervures" (Heinemann, Ent. Annual, 1863, pp. 47-49). 



With regard to the affinities of the Nepticulids, little is known, 

 Chapman considers them to have originated from the more primitive 

 Lepidoptera, but with none of the landmarks now left to show the line 

 of their evolution. He has pointed out, however, several remarkable 

 parallels between them and the Eucleids (Limacodids), which are here 

 quoted. Chapman writes : " In many respects Limacodet and Xrjitimla 

 seem extremely different, and apart from the matter of size, the larva 

 of the former is an external feeder. The neuration of the imagines of 

 the latter is crippled by the minute size of the moths, so as to render 

 them very different, though probably not essentially so in this respect. 

 It is, therefore, somewhat surprising to find a resemblance that is 

 almost identity in the pupa. In both, the pupal skin is very delicate ; 

 the free abdominal segments begin at the first ; the appendages are 

 easily separated, as they might be in a bee or beetle pupa ; the dorsal 

 spines are arranged in several rows of small equal points towards the 

 dorsal margin of the segment. The maxillary palpus is strongly 

 developed, and, on dehiscence, remains attached to the head coverings. 

 It is, indeed^ larger proportionally in these genera (Ajxxhi and 

 Hetfrnyenea), where it is obsolete in the imago, than in Nepticvbt, or 

 others where it persists in the imago. The pupa emerges from the 

 cocoon in much the same manner, and leaves a very delicate pupa-case, 

 in which, after the manner of the Incomjdetae, the covered parts are 

 nearly as strong as the exposed. The Eucleid larva passes the winter 

 in a passive state in the cocoon, changing in spring ; whilst its apod 

 character might be explained by its very recent descent from a footless 

 mining larva. The urticating properties of sundry exotic species of 

 the group, may, perhaps, be allied in nature to the excretion discharged 

 by some of these miners (especially Nepticvla), of some poison that 

 retards the autumnal decay of the leaf they inhabit. Xi-ptintla and 

 Limacodex present us, indeed, with the Incomplete pupa in an extreme 

 form ; the empty pupa-skin has every segment and each appendage quite 

 free from the others. The dorsal armature consists, in Cochliopods, of 

 a number of rows of very fine spines, all belonging to one series. In 

 the species of Nepticula examined there are no spines to the hind margin, 

 but the anterior set forms, in some species, a single row of largish spines, 

 in others two and three rows ; in the latter instances the spines are 

 much smaller. There is, therefore, a variability in the armature that 

 might easily extend to include the Cochliopod form. Xejitimla, how- 

 ever, has one character, that I have not met with elsewhere, riz., the 

 antenna-cases on dehiscence divide into the cover of the first joint 



