80 MEMOIRS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Another fact considered was tbat the hirva of Mrlanchroin (.1/. ccphhe and M. geometroides), 

 formerly associated with the Litliosiid:e, has been shown by Dewitz to be geometrids. Auotlier is 

 the absence of a pair of legs in the Nolidas which I find mnst, by their pupal and otlier characters, 

 be regarded as a distinct family from the Lithosiida". Still another fact is the conclusion I have 

 arrived at that the Lithosiida' have almost directly descended from the TiueidaMir from an extinct 

 group closely allied to them, and that from the Lithosiida' have arisen not only the Dioptida^, 

 perhaps including Thryganidia, the CyllopodidiE, and Hypsidie, but also the SyutoinidcP and 

 Nyctemerida', as well as the Arctiida-. 



On reexamining the larva, pupa, and imago of Phryganidia (we have no knowledge of the 

 transformations of the genuine DioptidiB as at present limited), it has seemed to me that the 

 genus has little of fundamental value to separate it from the gcometrid moths. 



First, as to the larva of Thryganidia, while in the shape of the head atul the slender cylindrical 

 body it diflers little from the larva of Melanchroia and that of geometrids in general, if the two 

 anterior pairs of abdominal legs were atrophied there would be no essential difference. That this 

 is probable is seen in the larva of Nola, which has but four pairs of abdominal legs, one pair being 

 atrophied. 



The end of the body (eighth abdominal segment) is humped, but the larv* of the East Indian 

 Euseniia and Uypsa are also humped at the end of the body. Phryganidia only differs in being 

 slenderer and without hairs, and seems more closely allied to the larvae of the Hypsidae than to 

 that of any of the allied groups. It does not spin a cocoon. 



The pupa is obtected, and in its essential features more like those of geometrids than those of 

 Lithosiida' or any Zyga'uid or Syntomid genera. It is naked and suspended by a remarkably long 

 cremaster; the end of the abdomen is otherwise peculiar. The head presents no vestigial 

 characters, there being no traces of maxillary palpi, of paraclypeal pieces, or apparently of Inbial 

 palpi (fig. -16). With a complete knowledge of all its stages, it is still difficult to assign it a definite 

 position. When we know more about the Dioptida', where it probably belongs, the problem may 

 -approach a solution, but that its affinities are closely with the Geometridae is shown by comparing 

 the ]iupa with that of Cleora. In the general shape of the head, of the eyes, of the front, and 

 especially of the abdomen, the resemblance is close; the peculiar shai)e and markings of the last 

 three abdominal segments are nearly identical in both genera, though the cremaster of Cleora is 

 much shortei'. 



In this connection reference should be made to the striking resemblance between the pupae 

 of (Eta aurea and Cleora pulchraria. To my great astonishment I find the pupa of Cleora has 

 the same vestigial head-characters as CEta; the general shape of the pupa is the same; the mode 

 of dehiscence the same, the shape of the vertex and its mode of separating when the moth issues 

 from the pupa case ; also the same shape of the eyes, of the peculiar clyjieus and labrura, while the 

 more pronounced vestigial characters are the labial palpi, forming a triangular area, and the large 

 semidetached paraclypeal pieces. Cleora shows that it is a more modern form in having no 

 traces of a vestigial eye-collar (maxillary palpi) such as occur (though very slightly developed) in 

 CEta. The sha])e of the end of the body, with the cremaster, is much the same, the shorter 

 cremaster of Cleora being an adaptation to its life in a slight ojienwork cocoon. In the peculiar 

 markings of the eighth and ninth abdominal segments Cleora is more like Phryganidia. 



Judging by the pu])al characters, then, the (leometrida^ have directly descended from the 

 Lithosiida', the latter, as I have satisfied myself, having directly originated from the generalized 

 Tineina. 



The imago of Phryganidia appears not to differ much from those of the Dioptida', to which it 

 has been referred by Butler. I am unable to see any important differences between the Dioi)tid;e 

 and Cyllopodida', though my material is scanty. In the slender body, sliapc of the head, and 

 proportions of the clyjiens, sliape of antenna' and palpi, both of these families do not essentially 

 differ from Melanchroia, which is now known to be a geometrid, nor from the geometrids 

 themselves. 



In its venation Phryganidia is nearly identical with tbat of a Josia from Jalapa, Mexico, in 

 my collection; the peculiarity is the origin of veins IIj and Illri from a common stem, in which 

 Phryganidia apparently differs from some if not all other Dioptida'. But the venation of the 



