Tue ZooLocist—Juty, 1872. 3119 
be right, and all the world wrong; and equally of course, if Newman is 
wrong, he is entitled to retain his own opinion ; but at the risk of repeating 
a thrice-told tale, I have thought it worth while to show that, so far as 
published authority goes, there is an overwhelming preponderance of 
opinion against him, and that those who are against him have given very 
good reasons for their opinions. We are not told by whom the ‘ convenient 
assumption’ has been made; and though doubtless the presence of the 
wing-scales has been alleged as one ground, and an important one, for 
regarding Accentropus as a moth, yet it is but one circumstance among 
many, and it seems to me inaccurate to say that any one has ‘ utilized the 
assumption to set up the hobby’ in question, for no author has relied 
exclusively, or even mainly, on the presence of wing-scales, but everyone 
has placed far greater dependence on other (less popular and more technical) 
characters. The tippets and wing-bristle originally set up the hobby. The 
passage about extended and careful observation and skill in logical deduction, 
leads one to enquire—Can Newman, when he penned it, have read the papers 
of Speyer? 
“Let me ask, what is to happen when the ‘standing assumption’ is 
‘knocked down again?’ The assumption is, that wing-scales are confined to 
Lepidoptera. Let us get rid of that assumption (if anybody has made it), 
and let us assume the contrary, that wing-scales are not confined to Lepi- 
doptera. From the premises (1), Acentropus has wing-scales, and (2), wing- 
scales are not confined to Lepidoptera, are we expected to draw the 
conclusion that Acentropus is not Lepidopterous? 1am not ‘skilled in 
logical deductions,’ but it seems to me that when the assumed assumption 
has been knocked down again, the argument in favour of the Lepidopterous 
conclusion remains untouched. 
“ But probably it is not the ‘assumption,’ but the ‘hobby’ which is 
intended to be dealt pugilistically with. Let us, then, look for a moment 
at the arguments by which the ‘ hobby’ has been hitherto ‘ knocked down.’ 
Newman’s reasons are given at p. 8216 of the ‘ Zoologist,’ and appear to be 
four in number :—(1), ‘scales far more like those of Lepidoptera occur on 
the elytra of a thousand beetles ;’ (2), the thoracic tippets do not ‘obtain 
throughout’ the Lepidoptera: (3), ‘the wing-bristle ‘ tends as much to unite 
Acentropus with the Hymenoptera as with the Lepidoptera;’ and (4), the 
characters in which the pupa of a moth differs from that of a Phryganea 
require to be more distinctly pointed out. Westwood has dealt with these 
grounds seriatim (Proc. Ent. Soc. 1862, p. 101); and, so far as I can 
discover, these are the only reasons which Newman has published for 
doubting that Acentropus is a moth. As suggesting points for further 
examination and explanation, the four propositions are harmless enough ; 
but to suppose that the enunciation of them has ‘ knocked down the hobby,’ 
or that, by the repetition of them, the hobby will be ‘ knocked down again,’ 
