612 PROF. J. O. WESTWOOD ON THE URANIID#. 
Rejecting, then, the Rhopalocera (including the Hesperiide), the typical Sphingide, 
Castniide, and Hepialide, together with the whole of the Microlepidoptera, we have 
to inquire which of the remaining Macrolepidopterous groups show the greatest amount 
of affinity to the Uraniide. 
If we rezard the Noctuide, we find a robust body with comparatively small wings 
formed for powerful flight, and generally marked with a peculiar reniform and a cir- 
cular spot or patch in the middle of the fore wings; the antenne are also almost 
invariably slender and setaceous, becoming gradually attenuated to the tip. In this 
family, however, is found a group (Erebus!) with the palpi elongated, terminated by a 
slender joint, which probably induced Dalman to place them, under the name of 
Thysania, with the Uraniide. 
Plate LXXXVI. fig. 4 represents the head of Erebus (Patula) macrops, Linn., Guén. 
(Bubo, Fabr., Donovan, Ins. China, pl. 44. f. 1). The venation of the wings, however 
(Plate LXX XVI. fig. 1 fore wing, and fig. 2 hind wing of the male, and fig. 5 hind 
wing of the female), of the same Indian species of Hrebus denuded of scales, is entirely 
different from that of any of the Uraniide, the fore wings having the small subcostal 
cell (se. c) and the lower discoidal vein (¢ 5*) arising close to the base of the third 
branch (¢ 3) of the median vein from a very short transverse discocellular vein. 
Mr. MacLeay, in his memoir on Urania, noticed the resemblance between the more 
or less spherical eggs of Urania and Catocala. The last-named genus, however, is 
an aberrant one in the family Noctuide; and the oology of the Lepidoptera has not 
been sufficiently studied to allow much weight to be given to the character of the eggs 
of these insects. At all events, as Mr. MacLeay remarked, the form of the eggs of 
Urania is a very common one in Lepidopterous insects. Hence we may reject the 
Noctuide from amongst the near relations of the Uraniide. 
Of the remaining families, typified by the Linnean genera Bombyx and Geometra, 
M. Guenée is decidedly in favour of the latter :—“‘ Il me semble,” says he (Hist. Nat. 
Ins. Lép. ix. p. 4), “ qu’aucune ne peut lutter a cet égard avec les Géométres. Nous 
retrouvons d’abord dans la premiere famille de ces derniéres que personne ne sera 
tenté de disputer aux Phalénes une nervulation [venation] exactement semblable. Les 
antennes quoique légérement renflées pres du sommet chez plusieurs Uranides, sont fili- 
formes ou plutét sétacées, et tout le monde sait que ce n'est que chez les Geometra que 
cette forme est vraiment normale. L’absence des stemmates et des taches réniformes 
et orbiculaires suffit pour les éloigner des Noctuelles et les rapprocher des Geometra ou 
ces caractéres manquent également. Les queues des ailes inférieures, avec les taches 
ocellées qui les accompagnent ne se retrouvent que chez les Géométres de la premiere 
famille ou chez les Saturnides qui les précéderont dans la distribution que j’ai adoptée. 
L’aspect général des deux derniéres familles, leurs ailes minces, étendues, leur vol diurne 
‘ M. Boisduval (in Nouy. Ann, du Mus. ii. p. 260) introduced the genus Urania between Erebus and the 
Geometridx., 
