20 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Vol. vi. 



there is a difference in the closeness of contact we have urged. This 

 difference is the measure of their nearness to a common ancestor. Thus 

 Attacus and Saturnia are close together, while Hemileuca stands apart a 

 little, still sharing the common type of wing which is indicated by 

 the long stem of the two upper branches of the Media. And Aglia and 

 Automeris are, in an opposite way, quite nearly related; while Citheronia 

 stands still further off from these and is much more by itself, though still 

 exhibiting the Aglian type of wing, the absence of stem to the upper 

 branches of the Media, the transverse cross vein, the stiff, equal dis- 

 tanced, parallel veins. To a brief review of what we have published 

 about Citheronia we devote the rest of this paper. 



The student must study with this paper what Dr. Dyar has written 

 in Can. Ent., 1896, 303, and the phylogeny there given. The drawing 

 there given is correct, except that I suppose the original Aglian stem (as- 

 sumed to be represented by the existing Citheronian branch) has given 

 off both Aglia and Automeris ; whether together, or one after another, or 

 whether Aglia be an outcome of Automerid like ancestors, which I am 

 now inclined to assume, I do not decide. My original view of the 

 separation of the six into the two groups is here maintained. I placed 

 Hemileuca parallel with Citheronia, or but slightly advanced from the 

 difference in general type, from the common retention of vein VIII of 

 secondaries. Above Citheronia, as having proceeded from the same 

 stem I placed successively Automeris and Aglia, the latter being the 

 most specialized. The antennal characters bear out this division. In the 

 Aglian group the female antennae are short and simple, with few excep- 

 tions in specialized forms. In Attacus and Saturnia they become 

 pectinate. I consider Citheronia as specialized in peculiar directions, 

 and as having lost much original character and added new ; still, by the 

 retention of vein VIII, as being, rather, the representative in direct line 

 of the original stem. But this view is, for the moment at least, 

 subordinate in importance to the correct placing of Hemileuca, to the 

 breaking up of the assemblage of Automeris and Hemileuca by Grote 

 and Robinson, Packard, Comstock and Dyar. This is the main classifi- 

 catory result which I believed to have attained in my recent studies of the 

 Emperor Moths. For, whether Citheronia represents the main branch 

 (in assuming which I am not a little influenced by Dr. Packard's 

 paper), or whether Automeris, is clearly of inferior value to the main 

 fact, that Aglia, Automeris and Citheronia belong together, while At- 

 tacus, Saturnia and Hemileuca represent another, and, on the whole, 

 more advanced phylogenetic line upon the same stem. The student. 



