GENUS CASTN1A AND SOME ALLIED GROUPS. 157 



cient descriptions, especially of Moths, in this country during the last twenty years, will 

 embarrass and disgust the student to such an extent as to retard the inquiry into the 

 general distribution of the Order, as well as the relations of the various families inter se, 

 for years to come. Without going to the extreme length which Mr. Scudder has done 

 in extending the characters of every genus over four or five closely printed pages (em- 

 bodying every point of the structure of the type in every stage of its existence, thereby 

 converting specific characters into generic ones), I yet hold that the description of a 

 Lepidopterous insect, without a thorough examination of its structural characters, is not 

 only detrimental to the science, but disgraceful to the author*. 



In like manner the entire alteration in the old and well-established systems of classi- 

 fication, both of the Rhopalocerous and Heterocerous Lepidoptera, and the substitution in 

 their stead of other systems which have only the charm of novelty and the love of change 

 to support them, is, as it appears to me, detrimental to the real advance of science. I 

 see, for instance, no reason or even advantage in removing the six-legged Papilionidae 

 from the head of the order, and substituting in their stead the Nymphalidae, with their 

 imperfect fore feet, advocated by the German writers, and servilely adopted by their 

 English followers ; neither can I approve of the displacement of the gigantic Bonibycidae 

 (Satumia, &c.) from the head of the Nocturnal Lepidoptera. 



We thus perceive that, with respect to the discrimination of many species, or the limita- 

 tions of genera and families, or the general distribution of the primary groups of the 

 Order, we are scarcely further advanced than we were in the days of Latreille. The 

 genus Castnia of Fabricius affords an illustration of the various difficulties to which I 

 have above alluded. By Linnaeus and all the writers of the last century the species of 

 this interesting genus with which they were acquainted were regarded as Butterflies, 

 being arranged under the genus Papilio, on account of the clubbed structure of the 

 antennae. On the dismemberment of that great group, at the commencement of the 

 present century, by Eabricius and Latreille, the genus Castnia was established ; but it 

 was still retained by the former as the 7th genus of the Butterflies, between the genera 

 Cethosia and Eu/plcea, characterized only by the structure of the palpi and antennae t ; 

 whilst Latreille, in all his works, placed it (with Agarista &c.) at the head of the 

 Crepuscularia, between the Hesperiidae (with which the TJranice were united) and the 

 Sphingidse. 



The connexion of these insects with the Diurnal Lepidoptera rests only on the structure 

 of their antennae, and on their evidently diurnal habits evinced by the brilliancy of their 

 colours. But when the antennae are carefully examined they do not bear out this con- 



* It would, in this place, indeed be unjust not to refer to the admirable manner in which Mr. Stainton has worked 

 out the economy and structure of the small and difficult groups of the Linnean genus Tinea, in his different works on 

 the Mierolepidoptera, whereby he has laid down the groundwork of a classification of these beautiful tribes, which 

 had previously been enveloped in doubt and difficulty. His figures also of the veining of the wings of these small 

 and difficult insects, as well as those given by the late Dr. Hemch-Schaffer in his ' Systematisehe Bearbeitung der 

 Schmetterlinge von Europa,' will greatly assist the student in his investigation of the relations of these insects. 



t System. Glossat. (Ed. linger, Mag. Ins. vi. 277, 1822). In Mr. Children's abstract of this system, given in Taylor's 

 Phil. Mag. for 1830, the generic name Castnia is misprinted Castina. 



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