53 
Meyrick proceeds to give us this needed progress. Who that has read 
Darwin, the carefully recorded facts, the modest style, the inferences 
appearing quietly as of themselves, and arising naturally and even 
unobtrusively out of the same facts, can find any resemblance at all 
between Darwin and Meyrick? Or does Mr. Meyrick suppose that 
unsupported statements such as “It is an offshoot of Chloroclystis,” 
““A development of Zephroclystis,” &c., &c., constitute Darwinism ? 
Of the spirit of Darwinism, its constant appeal to reasonableness, its 
ability to recognise the requirements of scientific proof, Mr. Meyrick 
appears to have caught indeed very little. But of the letter, and that 
one thing must have emerged from another thing, Mr. Meyrick seems 
to have caught enough, only he applies what he has in an arbitrary 
manner, a manner which must unfortunately arouse suspicion and 
convey distrust. 
In our studies of the venation of the day butterflies we have found 
nothing to warrant in any decided fashion the pre-eminence given by 
Bates to the Nymphalidz. ‘These lag behind the Pierids in that the 
radius remains in a generalised condition, and is five-veined. ‘They 
show an advance in the movement of the middle branch of the media 
towards the radius, in the opening of the cell and the erasure of the 
cross-vein in the more specialised genera ; but the upper branch of 
the media is in no instance, so far as I am aware, fused with the 
radius, as it is in /verzs and LVemeobius. In the hind wings the 
Nymphalids are more specialised (in addition to the above characters 
of the primaries, which apply to the secondaries also) by the greater 
extent of the fusion of II and III at base. In the more specialised 
groups (Nymphalidze, Pararginee, Libytheidze) the cross-vein retires to 
the point of issuance of the first branch of the cubitus, showing a 
greater amount of absorption apparently than we find in the Pieride, 
in the Agapetinee or more generalised meadow browns, and in the 
Limnadidee (Danaide). The Libytheidz overlap the more generalised 
Satyrids. 
The only grand division among the Diurnals which the neuration 
calls upon us to make is a separation of the Parnassi-Papilionidze 
from the rest of the butterflies, including the Hesperiadz. For in 
the first-named group we find a strongly marked, short, and down- 
wardly curved vein at the base of the primaries on internal margin. 
In the Pieri-Hesperiade this vein is wanting. Instead there is an 
upwardly curved, short vein, or scar of such a vein, or again 
obliterated, which coming from the base of the wing joins the vein 
VII at its outer end, forming a loop. ‘Thus the direction of the two 
veins is diametrically opposed. Whether I am night in numbering 
these internal veins differently, or whether they are homologous, 
notwithstanding the difference in position and direction, does not 
alter my position that thereby a diphyletic origin of our day butterflies 
is indicated. A reply to those who assign a low rank to Papilio is 
further found in a specialisation of the secondaries in its group, one 
by which vein VIII has become lost. The Parnassi-Papilionide 
