MR. TRIMEN ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG 





01 



racters of importance. The splendid family Papilionida, by mere force of the size, 

 number, and beauty of its members, has so long held the place of honour in English and 



in most continental classifications, that many lepidopterists are loth to supplant it by a 

 comparatively insignificant-looking group; but, regarding the question structural ly, 

 there can be no doubt that an arrangement which interposed between the only families 

 with fully developed fore legs (viz. the Papiliomdce and Pieridce at one end of th< 

 series, and the Hesperiida at the other) all the groups that more or less widely differed 

 in the character of those very organs was artificial and unnatural. On the other hand, 

 Mr. Wallace (loc. cit. p. 2) has questioned the propriety of claiming a high position for 

 any group on the ground of extreme imperfection of any of its organs. Taken apart 

 from other considerations, this at first sight appears a valid objection ; but it must be 

 borne in mind, as suggested by Mr. Bates, that the Lepidopterous type among Articu- 

 lata, like that of the Bird among Vertebrata, is preeminently aerial, and, consequently, 

 that a diminution of the ambulatory organs, instead of being a sign of inferiority, 

 may very possibly indicate a higher (because more thoroughly aerial) form. Mr. Wal- 

 lace further contends for the first rank being accorded to the Papilionidce, on account 

 of the perfect insects possessing the peculiar and constant character of an apparently 

 4-branched median nervure, and a " spur"* on the anterior tibiae, and the larvae havin 

 an extrusible Y-shaped tentacle. The appendage to the anterior tibiae is admitted by 

 Mr. Wallace to be a character of some Hesperiidce ; and not having been found in other 

 Butterflies, it may fairly be regarded, in conjunction with the full development of the 

 first pair of legs, as a sign of affinity, however distant, between the two families. The 

 apparent fourth branch of the median nervure is not an additional nervule, but actually 

 the lower radial (" second discoidal nervule" of Doubleday) unusually placed in relation 

 to the third branch of the nervure, and thus can hardly be regarded as in any way signi- 

 ficant of superior development!. Nor can the Y-shaped tentacle of the larva be insisted 



This is more strictly a small foliated expansion or appendage. 

 t More remarkable points in the neuration of the Papiliomdce are the Moving, viz. :-lst, the short, transve. 

 interno-median nervule, uniting the median and submedian nervures of the fore wings, and closing a small basal 



n ^ — _ « ., • "L^U "U«« r.n i -n /? /vrtrvn fl rvn f s»A1ir.CA and fprmiiuifi - 



inner margin : and. 3rdlv. the distinct 



branched precostal nervure with the costal. Papilio (including Omithoptera) appears constantly to present these 

 characters, with some variation in the size of the prediscoidal cell of the hind wings ; the Australian E* * also 

 ., .. . . . ii _ii_-i . :« a^nnua Tflimnahms. and L< I'tocircus appear 



Par 



ully 

 (but not the interno-median nervule) of the fore wings 



none of the three characters. 



nervure of the lore wings; ami m *■» «*.. 



n.. 3 i.\^~ i. nn< .T-«roii intprna-mr.dian nervule 



nervur 



with the submedian nervure 



win*, has hitherto been employed as the distinguishing feature of the curious 



*tidm, in which it is formed in precisely the same manner as in the PapiUonidce. 

 m, t j mmo ■ „ future not rare anions me neterocera 



The presence of additional cells, enclosed by anastomosing nervines, is a teature CotmM „ m . 



r«M i.i ^ \ n*A t a < vh .iloniW V and in some genera of (reometrse (Opo- 



K*d* the plates of neuration in Guenee's ■ Noctuelites' and Phalemtes j, ana b v i 



i- „ , , . i • _ ^^iinvinP" exactly the same position as m the 



"**>, Ennomos, &c.) a cell is found at the base of the hind wings, occu»ing exactly tn | 



Butterflies mentioned. 



