MEMOIKS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 57 



Q_ j_ Pupa with no free segments, appendages adherent to all abdominal segments. Lyoiielia, 



Cemiostoma, Bedellia. 

 Note.— Eriocephala (Jlicropteryx pnrpurella, etc.) appears by imaginal characters to belong to Adelida*. But 

 the pupa ia truly incomplete, not semiiucomplete, as all the other lucompletie are; that is, the appendages are all 

 absolutely distinct and free, and all the abdominal segments are "free;" moreover, it possesses working jaws. 



Appareutl.y a few moiitbs after the publication of Dr. Cliainuan'.s paper Professor Com.stock's' 

 able aud sugge.stive paper appeared, iu which he uses the veuatiou of the wings as taxouomic 

 characters, aud proposes to make the following divisions of the Lepidoptera: 



A. .Suborder , I IGAT.E. 



B. The ilacrojngntn- Family Hepialid.e 



Microju"-atii' Family Micropterygid^ 



A A. Suborder Fri;nat.e. 

 B. The micfofreiialw. 



C. The Tine'uh Superfamily Tineina 



C C. The Tortririda Superfamily Tortkkixa 



C C C. The Piimlids Superfamily Pyralidina 



B B. The ilacrofrenala: 



Without entering into further details, we only add the succession of the fanulies of this 

 division giveu by the author in ascending order, beginning with the most generalized: 



Megalopygidic. Cymatophorid.'e. Saturniina. 



Zygaenidic iu part. Noctuida?. Drepanida-. 



Psychidie. Liparida;. Lasiocampidaj. 



C'ossida>. Agaristidai. Hesperida-. 



Limacodidaj. Arctiidve. Papilionida;. 



Dioptida;. Sesiid*. Pieridie. 



NotodontidiB. Thyrididoe. Lycaenid;e. 



Brephida;. Zygaeniua. Nymphalidie. 

 Geoinetridii'. 



The objection we should make to this arrangement of the Lepidoptera into two suborders, 

 Jugata' and Frenat;e, is that the characters used are too slight, and do not agree with the more 

 fundamental pupal characters or with important imaginal features. The jugum is of slight if 

 any functional value, and in Micropteryx, as in Trichoptera, occurs both in the hind and front 

 wings,- a point apparently overlooked by Comstock. The Uepialida', as we shall hope to show, 

 are much less generalized forms than the Eriocephalidie, or even the ^Micropterygidw ; the pupa^ of 

 both these groups have free limbs and abdominal segments, belonging to what Speyer calls a group 

 of Pupa libera. The Ilepialida^ also neither possess maxillary palpi nor vestigial mandibles; they 

 are borers in the larval state, and the pupa has not free limbs, but is a pupa incompleta. They 

 are scarcely ancestral, though very primitive, forms, but have already become modified, having 

 no traces of mandibles aud no maxilhe, aud in our native species the labial palpi have already 

 begun to degenerate. We tlierefore scarcely .see good reasons for placing the family at the 

 very foot of tlie order below Micropteryx, but should regard the family as a side branch of the 

 PaliPolepidoptera, which, very soon after the appearance of the order, became somewhat specialized. 



Comstock's Frenatie comprises a heterogeneous collection of families, some of which have no 

 frenulum at all; and when present they offer secondary sexual characters. The absence or 

 presence of a frenulum is hardly, then, a sufficiently fundamental character to be used in 

 establishing a great primary division. Besides this there is a rather close alliance between the 

 IlepialidiL' and Cossida-, the latter having a rudimentary frenulum. Chapman remarks that while 

 Cossus and Hepialus are quite distinct iu pupal characters, there appear to exist iu Australia 

 many forms uniting them with Zeuzera into one family. The venation is also quite similar, aud 

 while the two families of Cossid;e aud Hepialida- are iu some most important respects quite far 

 apart, one being, so to speak, tineid aiul the other tortricid in structure, yet it would, we think, 

 be a forced and unsound taxonomy to assign them to different suborders. 



' Evolution and Taxonomy. An essay on the application of the theory of natural selection in the classification 

 of animals and plants, illustrated by a study of the wings of insects and by a contribution to the classification of 

 the Leiddoptera. Ithaca, N. Y., 1893. 



■ In his drawing of the wings of Micropteryx Comstock has not represented the jugum-like flap ou the 

 hind wing, which is present iu Micropteryx piirjyiircUd, though not apparently iu Eriocephala caltheUa. Since it 

 occurs on the hind as well as foi'o wings, I doubt that it is of much use iu keeping the wings spread. 



