10 GROTE—THE DESCENT OF THE PIERIDS. Jan. 9, 
could not verify its existence. Indeed it is quite clear that Mr. 
Meyrick’s figure of the wing of Venilia macularia is impossible. 
For supposing that we could homologize the loop of the second 
anal with the third anal of the Papilionides, Mr. Meyrick’s figure 
would depict a moth with four anal veins to the primary, since 
both loop and downwardly curved vein are given. It seems as 
though the fork or loop to the second anal vein must exclude the 
third anal vein of the Papilionides and should therefore be homo- 
logous with it. In the Saturnian genera Ze/ea and Actas the loop 
is continued as a short spur. This looks as though the loop might 
be the remains of a longitudinal third anal vein, which has been 
joined to the second anal bya cross-vein, while the external portion 
has afterwards degenerated. 
This view is supported by the fact that the prolongations to the 
pure and simple loop appear in the Tineid families Cossidz and Psy- 
chide, but, in either case, the diphyletism of the diurnals is un- 
touched, since we can reach the Cosszde without again meeting the 
free and downwardly curved third anal vein of the Papilionides. 
The third anal would have been merely connected with the second 
in one line and not in the other. At this moment the Papilionides 
hang in the air and their ancestry is undiscovered. | We may sup- 
pose them to have been evolved at the same geological period with 
the Hesperiades, whose origin we can trace, and that the record 
has in their case become lost. 
ABERRANT TYPES. 
Having thus indicated the course probably taken by the ances- 
tors of the two divisions of the butterflies (Lepidoptera which of 
old loved light rather than darkness and hence may have become 
what they are), we can turn to a brief consideration of three dis- 
sonant minor groups which hang upon the skirts of the Pierids 
without any traceable connection. These are the Leptidiane, the 
Dismorphiane and what we must call the Pseudopontiade, for, 
according to a note in the Hxtomologist’s Record, Mr. W. F. Kirby 
has shown that Psewdopontia of Plétz antedates by a little Gonophle- 
bta of Felder, and Mr. Scudder’s statement that. we should prefer 
the latter is thus amended. The two former groups seem closely 
allied by the extraordinary character of the cubital movement of 
the middle vein of the median series. The Leptidiane are pecu- 
