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



with Automeris. But here it is evidently vein VIII which is added to 

 what is, in its total pattern, in its flowing venation, its wide interspac- 

 ing, its treatment of the Media and its system, its position of vein IV2 

 — in all these points — the wing of a Saturnian, not the wing of an 

 Aglian. What the addition of vein VIII makes to the wing of an 

 Aglian we see in Citheronia. The student will follow me here better by 

 a glance at the figures given, in this way complying with Hamlet's re- 

 quest to look first on this picture and then on this. How impossible 

 does it not seem, that a classification can be correct (and a classification 

 which represents even approximately the phylogeny) which would de- 

 rive the Automerid from the Hemileucid wing, or the reverse ! Is it 

 conceivable that the malleable Hemileucid wing should have stiffened 

 into the Automerid ? Or that the rigid wing of Citheronia should have 

 produced both ? Or to believe with Dyar, that the wing of Aglia could 

 have become transformed into the wing of Saturnia and Attacus, while 

 the very wing of Aglia, its pendant, the wiqg of Automeris, should 

 break out with Hemiletcca ? For those who believe in the "more con- 

 servative modern classification" it will be no argument to appeal to 

 Hiibner and that this writer considered maia to be a Saturnia ; and, 

 in fact, we see that Hiibner was often mistaken, such as Professor 

 Smith never is. But, in spite of all his mistakes, we believe that here 

 Hiibner is quite right; right also, in the " Tentamen" and in the 

 " Verzeichniss," in recognizing two main groups of the Emperor Moths, 

 which we call Saturniadse and Agliadas, and that Hemileuca belongs 

 to the first and Automeris to the last. We shall try to make this clearer 

 by our remarks on the next family. 



Agliad^e. 

 It is to Dr. Packard that we are indebted for calling our attention 

 to the fact that Aglia is a specialized Citheronian, and this from other 

 grounds than the neuration, grounds we must here pass over. Before 

 taking up the neuration of the Agliadse, we will revert for an instant to 

 Hemileuca again. The vein we call IIIi 4. 2 in Hemileuca springs from 

 the Radius above the cell. In the Agliadse this is the normal condition 

 of affairs. Its point of emergence travels upwards a little in Aglia, as 

 compared with Automeris, and herein is the latter the more generalized. 

 But in Saturnia it has already been absorbed to a point of issuance 

 from III3 -f- 4, just before the apex. Now, this is just what we would 

 expect in a generalized Saturnian, and it follows naturally the presence 

 of vein VIII in Hemileuca. But the type of Saturnia, the long stem 

 upon which IVi and IV2 sit, is already fully developed in Hemileuca. 



