March, 1898] Grote : Classification of Lepidoptera. 15 



and Psychidas as standing in a connection with the ancestral line of the 

 Emperor Moths, which may be merely noticed in passing. 



Bearing in mind the two directions in which the evolution of the 

 wing is chiefly displayed, we find in the Attacinoe their fullest develop- 

 ment. In fact the wing of Roths childia jacobcea represents almost the 

 ideal apex of the movement. In the first direction, the Media and its 

 system, as such, has completely disappeared. The crossvein has 

 vanished. Veins IV2 and IV i form part of the system of the Radius, 

 vein IV3 forms part of that of the Cubitus. That portion of the cross- 

 vein, belonging to it morphologically, lying between IV2 and IV 1, has 

 become physiologically the base of vein IV2*. In the second direction, 

 the radial branches are reduced to three from five. Added to this, the 

 concave inner margin of the secondaries has lost vein VIII. By this 

 latter character we are reminded of Papilio, and that the concave margin 

 is a specialization is made clearer in this case by its more excessive de- 

 velopment, attended by a shrinking in the length of vein VII, in the 

 more specialized Parnassins. 



There will come a time, to speak after the fashion of Mr. Strecker, 

 and the ancient Greeks, when the uncritical classification which thrusts 

 the Papilionides between the Blues and the Skippers (these latter two, 

 as we believe, nearly related) will be read with amazement. The fable 

 that the Papilionid wing is the most generalized must give way to the 

 view that it is peculiarly specialized by the suppression of vein VIII of 

 secondaries. Generalized it is, as compared with Parnassius, but it 

 should not be compared with the other butterflies, since it has had a 

 different line of development. Undoubtedly, the irritable defense of 

 Mr. W. H. Edwards that Papilio has six walking legs and Nymphalis 

 only four, was not sufficient to dispel the illusion clinging to the system 

 of Bates. It was also felt that the more ideal championship of Wallace, 

 that Papilio was so large and complete, could not excuse its being 

 placed " at the head " of a phalanx in reality, a phalanx spreading over 

 the plain of the present without a leader. All this was perceived, and 

 other similar attacks upon a system adopted by my friend Dr. Scudder, 

 and thus made part of the supreme cult of Boston, fell equally power- 

 less. So that newcomers, rising from obscurity, felt themselves obliged 

 to confess the creed as a matter of " my opinion," and to follow up the 

 futile expression of credo quia ineptum by the statement that " the 

 sequence is in accord with the more conservative modern classification." 

 Where this more conservative modern classification leads to we may see 



* Compare Mittheilungen aus d. Roemer-Museum, No. 8, p. 24. 



