[June 1884. BULLETIN BROOKLYN ENTOM. SOC. VOL. VII. 23 
and its allies, and these with Hwclidea ought to be almost, if not quite at 
the end of the Noctuzdae. 
LIMITATIONS OF THE GENUS. 
The most of Lepidopterists probably are agreed, that many of the 
divisions called genera are artificial. But it is perhaps just as fully 
agreed, that this ought not to be the case, and that the effort should be, 
to free ourselves from this unscientific method as soon as possible. With 
all the gaps that exist in nature, there surely is no reason why, even 
though many genera must be very large, there should be the making of 
genera for accommodations sake. The basing of genera on comparative 
differences only, as is the case so largely in the Rhopalocera, the Sphinges, 
the Delfoids, and elsewhere, is only a confession of ignorance, and ought 
not to countenanced any longer. It may be well to try to map out in 
our divisions, the probable development of the past in nature, but in the 
Lepidopiera, this can, save in close allies, be only wildly guessed at. The 
history of nature in the Zepzdopfera, since perhaps as far back as the 
Carboniferous age, has probably been downward in the main, not up- 
ward. The cataclysms of the past have broken the thread of kinship, 
beyond the possibility of recognition. And, (whatever our belief in evolu- 
tion,) so far as history and experience go, nature is unchanging. It is wis- 
dom we think, to map out as best we can, nature as we find it, and make 
divisions only as we find them in nature. Generic distinction should be 
based on structure only, and should extend till a break is found in nature. 
The genus Papilio is a case in point. Its species are very widely variant; 
but it is as impossible naturally to divide it, so far as present knowledge 
goes, as it is to divide nations naturally by parallels of latitude. 
But what will constitute a natural distinction sufficiently marked to 
warrant a genus? Here is where the difficulty comes in. ‘There is 
without doubt great loss, where genera are multiplied; there is hardly less 
loss, where they are too few. The middle path is, as in most cases, the 
safest. Let a genus have a good valid structural reason for existing, 
and let it be the duty of the one who affirms the need, to prove it, not 
the duty of the one who denies, to prove there is no valid ground for it. 
On this basis, after thorough examination and study, though not 
without a consciousness, that in one case, much can properly be said 
against it, 1 have concluded to follow Mr. John B. Smith in his *‘Synop- 
sis of the Noctuide of N. A.”, Bull. Brooklyn Ento. Soc, Vol. V, July 
1882, putting Parthenos, Allotria, and Andrewsia, under Cafocala, as not 
