PROF. J. O. WESTWOOD ON THE URANIIDZ. 511 
Adopting the opinion of M. Boisduval, that the group before us will not enter into 
any of our generally received families, and that it is “ une de ces créations 4 part, qui 
envoie 4 la fois un rameau vers plusieurs groupes, mais que l’on ne peut faire entrer 
convénablement dans aucun” (Mon. Agarist. p. 7, extr. Rev. et Mag. de Zoologie), we 
must now investigate the natural relationships of this most interesting group of insects, 
which have been alternately regarded as butterflies and moths. 
Thus Linnzus regarded the more typical species as butterflies, and Fabricius even 
placed them at the head of the day-flying genera. Dalman, as we have already seen, 
considered that P. orontes formed the transition between the Papilionidx and the other 
Uraniide. Latreille (Gen. Crust. et Ins. iv. p. 207) gave Urania and Hesperia as the 
two terminal genera of the Diurna, and Castnia (into which he introduced P. orontes) as 
the first genus of the Sphingides. The same arrangement was employed in the 9th 
volume of the ‘ Encyclopédie méthodique,’ where Godart divided the genus Urania 
into four groups:—A, Ripheus; B, Sloaneus and Leilus; C, Orontes and Patroclus ; 
D, Lunus and Empedocles. In 1825 (Fam. Nat. du Régne An. p. 470), and in 1829 
(Régne An. 2nd edit. iv. p. 387), Hesperia and Urania are still given by Latreille as 
two genera of Hesperiide, and Castnia, Coronis, and Agarista of Leach as forming the 
first tribe (Hesperi-Sphinges) at the head of the Sphingide. 
This arrangement continued unchanged by Latreille to the last, and was adopted by 
his more immediate French followers. It had, however, in the meantime met with 
opposition in Germany and Sweden, Hiibner in 1816, as we have already seen, having 
placed the entire group amongst the Geometride, while Dalman had removed them 
from the Diurnal Lepidoptera to form his uncharacterized group Nyctalidee with P. 
orontes as the connecting link between them and the butterflies. M.Guenée, however, 
did not hesitate in 1857 entirely to reject their relationship with the Diurna, showing 
that with respect to the characters derived from the spring and socket at the base of the 
wings, the form of the antenne and palpi, the structure and armature of the legs, and 
the venation of the wings, together with the form of the larvee, so far as known at that 
time, these insects had no real relation with the Diurnal Lepidoptera (Hist. Nat. Ins. 
Lép. ix. p. 3), that they formed one entire group, and that they ought to be placed 
among the Nocturna; in fact, although by being placed by some writers at the head of 
the Heterocera their supposed relationship with the Hesperiide has been in a manner 
kept up, the pointed tips of the antenn of some of the species, and the spines on the 
hind legs favouring such a view, they exhibit no real relationship with the Hesperiide. 
In like manner a comparison of the structural details which I have given in the 
accompanying plates, with those of the Castniide and Hepialide published in my re- 
cent memoir on the former family in the ‘Transactions of the Linnean Society,’ will 
clearly show that the relationship of Coronis with Castnia as indicated by Latreille, and 
that of Urania with Castnia as suggested by Macleay in this Society’s ‘ Transactions,’ i. 
p- 188, must be completely ignored. 
4B 2 
