Phylctic ParatUlism in Metamorphic Species. 443 



family, at any rate morphologically, as unequally 

 n-lat< 1 as their larva: ? Whether it is correct to 

 combine them into one family is a question that 

 does not belong here ; we are now only concerned 

 with the fact that the two stages are related in form 

 in very different degrees. 



An especially striking case of incongruence is 

 offered by the family Notodontidce, under which 

 Boisduval, depending only on imaginal diameters, 

 united genera of which the larvae differed to a very 

 great extent. In O. Wilde's work on caterpillars 

 this family is on this account quite correctly cha- 

 racterized as follows : " Larvae of various forms, 

 naked or with thin hairs, sixteen or fourteen legs." " 

 In fact in the whole order Lepidoptera there can 

 scarcely be found associated together such diverse 

 larvae as are here placed in one imago-family ; 

 on one side the short cylindrical caterpillars of 

 the genus Cnetkocampa, Steph. (C. Processioned, 

 Pithyocampa, &c.), which are covered with fine, 

 brittle, hooked hairs, and are very similar to the 



" [The following characters are given in Stainton's " Manual 

 of British Butterflies and Moths," vol. i. p. 114: "Larva 

 of very variable form : at one extreme we find the singular 

 Centra larvae, with only fourteen legs, and two long projecting 

 tails from the last segment; at the other extreme we have 

 larvae with sixteen legs and no peculiarity of form, such as 

 Chaonia and Bu&phala , most have, however, the peculiarity 

 of holding the hind segment of the body erect when in repose ; 

 generally quite naked, though downy in Bucephala and rather 

 hairy in Curtulu : very frequently there are projections on the 

 back of the twelfth segment." R.M.] 



