^^^ ... Ny 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



Vol. XI. No. 4. April 15th, 1899. 



A Classification of Butterflies by their Antennae.''^ 



By T. a. CH.\PMAN, M.D., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



The Editor of the Kntniixthiiji^t^ Irmnl has asked me to contribute 

 a review of this important paper. I do so with pleasure, but also with 

 regret that he has not placed it in more competent hands. The paper 

 is one of great importance, since it records a large amount of careful 

 and systematised work, and marshals the results so as to yield some 

 very definite and valuable conclusions. The introduction to the paper 

 promises us an equally full treatment of the morphology of all othei- 

 parts of the exoskeleton of lepidoptera, in a series of papers of which 

 this is the first. As this paper deals only with the antennae, and so 

 even, the antennae of only the butterflies, the whole research when 

 complete, if carried out as fully and accurately as the portion before 

 us, will be immensely monumental both in size and importance. The 

 author proposes to found a classification (of a provisional character) on 

 the results of the examination of each separate organ, and ])y finally 

 bringing these into line, come to a satisfactory result as to phylogeny and 

 classification. In this introduction he recognises how nuich ahead of 

 us the Americans are in these researches, but is a little too sweeping 

 in denying the existence of any European books with valuable remarks 

 on the morphology of lepidoptera. 



There is first a reference to previous work on the antennae of butter- 

 flies, and especially to Bodine's paper (summarised in K)it. Ui-ctml, 

 viii., pp. 225 and 261). There is this difi'erenee between Bodine's work 

 and that in the paper before us, that Bodine's work was to a great 

 extent histological, and involved preparation of specimens and con- 

 siderable magnification, whilst Dr. Jordan says that all his facts can be 

 obtained without mutilating specimens, and by means of a hand lens. 

 This is no doubt true, though I found it difficult to be sure of some 

 items without the use of a compound microscope and some preparation 

 of specimens, and fancy that JJr. Jordan could not be so confident as 

 he justly is, about some of his facts, if he had not done so also. We 

 miss a definite statement of the relative use of terms, since Dr. Jordan 

 does not adopt the same terminology for the details of antennal 

 structure as Dr. Bodine does, yet an increase of synonymy is as great 

 an evil in morphology as in systematic zoology. Whether Bodine's 



* " Contributions to the Morphology of Lepidoptera." By Karl Jordan, Ph.D. 



I. " The Antennae of Butterflies " [SovUatc.^ Zoolofiicae, vol. v., August 1898), pp. 45, 

 2 Plates. 



