62 
through the greater suppression of the media and its system, and 
should therefore head the list after the Wymphaine. ‘These latter 
butterflies are only represented in Britain by Zzmenztes ; they differ 
from all the other true forest butterflies by the amount of absorption of 
II by III on the secondaries above alluded to. All the other Nympha- 
lidee have vein II only absorbed by III to a varying point, but one 
below the point of issuance of I. The other Nymphalids lie here 
behind Zimenztis and Mymphalis. Argynnis is the most generalised 
genus. From Argynnis-like ancestors JZetea seems to have 
proceeded. ‘This is rendered likely by the actual fusion of III 2 with 
the radius in A/e/tea at a point only indicated in Arvgyunis. The 
Satyrids are certainly less specialised than the forest butterflies. They 
fall into two groups, of which it seems to me that the Pararginze 
(Pararge and Lastommata) are the most specialised. A sequence of 
the other minor groups of meadow browns is difficult to establish from 
the neuration, it is so uniform. The Agapetine resemble the white 
in the position of the cross-vein of secondaries, and also by the same 
character the Zzmnadide—the latter an exotic group, evidently more 
generalised than the meadow browns, and introduced by Mr. Tutt 
into the British lists upon the strength of the fact that <Anosra 
archippus, or, as Mr. Scudder calls it, Danaida plexippus, has been 
found in England under the circumstances which botanists call 
“escaped from gardens.” ‘That it is “now established” appears to 
me very difficult to credit. These ‘‘four-footed” butterflies are 
evidently an offshoot from the “‘six-footed” stem. They have been 
developed laterally from it, and in other regions have proved them- 
selves a great success, and ‘apparently found their profit in, to us, an 
incomprehensible character—the abortion of the front pair of legs VAs 
a whole, the Wymphahde proper stand out from and appear more 
specialised than the other ‘four-footed ” butterflies. 
We come next to the Hesperid branch proper, which in its 
specialised forms, the Blues and /Vemeodzus, assumes also a partial 
atrophy of the front feet. And here I must be brief, both because 
of the length of my paper and because I have elsewhere very fully 
discussed the probabilities of the case. I have, I believe, proved 
in particular as against the summary published by Reuter, that the 
Lyceenid type may very well be a derivation or specialised offshoot 
from the Hesperid type. Both are old, the middle, and often the 
upper branch of the media as well, are wearing out by the lapse of 
time and the consequences of isolation. ‘The middle branch of the 
media has resisted the attractions both of the radius and cubitus, and 
persisted in a generalised central position. But in MVemeobrus and 
Megathymus it has given way, and these types have perhaps the 
future of the stem in their keeping. For the reign of this branch of 
the butterfly phylum has probably reached its maximum. It has 
separated into innumerable species, feebly differentiated, and has 
conquered an immense territory. It has waxed, and it will wane, 
with all the rest of that nature amidst which we stand for the moment, 
and enjoy the attainment of consciousness. 
