VAEIATION. 21 



me on reading. (1) p. 12. Concerning number of eggs laid by moths, 

 I think my record iov Eep anther i a scribonia\YOi\\d have been interesting 

 to add, viz., 2274 (see Can. Ent., vol. xxiii., p. 106). (2) On the tree 

 (p. 113) you seem to assume that the Castniidae have upright eggs. 

 Is there any proof of this ? The American genus Isleriaihyvuis, put in the 

 Castnians by Kirby and Druce, bears no relation to them, but is a true 

 Hesperid. (3) p. 117. In your characterisation of Megalopygids you 

 say " seven pairs of abnormal prolegs." It should be six. The anal 

 legs are normal without accessory pads (see Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc, 

 vii., p. 69). (4) p. 125. " The thoracic horns of Ceratomia." I wish 

 authors would stop quoting these as evidences of anything whatever. 

 They are perfectly secondary, as I have shown, and are merely a 

 special adaptation, lu Ceratomia the ordinary oblique lines are re- 

 placed by rows of teeth, and the " horns " are only another manifesta- 

 tion of this peculiar converting of markings into structural characters, 

 (5) p. 364. " C. arellana with its reversible spines on hatching." You 

 surprise me by suggesting any homology between this and the mature 

 structure in Doratifera. The two are as utterly different as it is 

 possible to imagine. Naturally this makes you get the evolution 

 upside down. (6) p. 365. You did not improve the synopsis by 

 changing the last paragraph. The presence of primitive setfe and 

 skin spines is not contradictory to my definition of " smooth," which 

 refers to the absence of warts or their derivatives. The distinction 

 between the Eulimacodinae (better Prolimacodinae) and Cochlidinae is 

 really a sharp one. You do not seem to have apprehended it. 



Warts in stage I ; later primitive setae only . . . . Prolimacodinae. 



No warts in any stage ; strong and weak segments .. Coclilidinae. 

 (7) pp. 122 and 865. Hairs not stings. I think they are stings. The shaft 

 seems hollow, and on the removal of the cap on entering the sldn the 

 poison probably escapes (see Packard's figures). The sensation is 

 certainly a stinij, different enough from the Lasiocampid hairs. Do not 

 confound Packard's " caltropes " and the detachable spines with the 

 ordinary urticating spines of the horns. They are quite separate 

 things. — Hakeison G. Dyar, Ph.D., United States National Museum, 

 Washington. October list, 1899. [This note was sent as a private 

 criticism, not specially for publication ; but I have noted the facts 

 involved in the criticism in my own copy, and doubt not other 

 students would like to do the same. — En.] 



"VARIATION. 



Cabera pusaeia ab. rotundaeia and a parallel ab. of C. exan- 

 THEMAEiA. — Some time since I beat a number of larvje from birch, in 

 Coombe Wood, Surrey, which I considered to be Cabera jmsaria, and 

 from them I bred a long series of C. pusaria, with a fair sprinkling of 

 rotundaria, but as there Avere some decidedly intermediate forms I have 

 ever since considered it to be only an aberration of C. -pusaria. Many 

 of the forms representing rotundaria were more or less crippled, and 

 looked as if they had been somewhat dried whilst in the pupal stage, 

 from which I thought this may have produced the difference in shape 

 and possibly in markings also.— A. W. Meea, 79, Capel Road, Forest 

 Gate, E. 



Some years ago I bred a number of C. pusaria from eggs obtained 



