SALE OF THE STAINTON LIBR.UIY. 129 



very probable tbat tlicir three-grooved antenna is directly derived from 

 the one-grooved Pierino antenna, at a comparatively late period, and 

 not a parallel development from a common ancestor, and it is no doubt 

 true that the Dismorphiine neuration has some Nymphalid features, 

 suggesting a community of origin with the Nymphalids rather greater 

 than in the Pierids generally, and, therefore, a derivation from the 

 Piorid stem very shortly after it had left the Nymphalids. In fjfjdiilia 

 iiina]iis there is immense variety in the character of tlie grooving. The 

 type is, no doubt, that described by Jordan, /•/;., three grooves scooped 

 out of the distal margin of the segment, the middle one being the 

 larger ; but their relative sizes may vary, their distances apart are not 

 quite constant, there may be subsidiary depressed points (referred to 

 by Dr. Jordan), and, in some cases, the median groove continues right 

 to the base of the segment, reproducing very much the groove of 

 Anthocharia helia. There is evidenced by this variability (as in Var- 

 nassiits) either a forward struggle or a decay. It seems more proljablo 

 that it is a struggle forwards — an attempt to obtain a rather larger 

 area for hairs, to compensate the obvious diminution of their area due 

 to the elongating tendency (seen in the Aving nervures and antennae, 

 characteristic of a majority, though not all, of the Dismorphiine group) 

 driving all the sensory surface to the end of the club, and the hair 

 patches to the distal margin? of the segments. The restricted hair 

 patches find it easier to burst out in fresh places than to increase their 

 own area. They appear hisymmetrically on each antenna, and their 

 variability I take to be evidence that the distribution we find here 

 is recent, and if not still in progress is not yet stereotyped into 

 constancy. 



In l'si'i(d<)j>icris, which is much less specialised than [jqitidia, the 

 Dismorphiine grooves are not so definite. It may, perhaps, not have 

 quite lost the impress of the Pierid antenna. In conclusion I wish to 

 recognise the amount of admiralily accurate work in Dr. Jordan's 

 paper, and the great advance we obtain from it in the knowledge of 

 the antennal structure of butterflies. My admiration is not lessened 

 by the circumstance that I find Dr. Jordan short of facts as to the 

 antennae of the lower I'ludarnac, and consequently arriving at 

 erroneous conclusions as to the lines of evolution of the lepidopterous 

 antennae, and even as to the methods of antennal evolution. I am 

 also obliged to disagree with him as to the position assigned to the 

 I'irn'dar, not only on the evidence of structures I have myself more 

 specially studied, or on that of so many other structures that have led 

 authorities to place Pieris anywhere but where Dr. Jordan places it, 

 but on the evidence of antennal structure, the most reasonable inter- 

 pretation of which places them as derivations of the Papilionid, and 

 not of the Lycaenid, phylum. 



Sale of the Stainton Library. 



One is uncertain whether an unsatisfactory method of advertise- 

 ment, by which possibly very few entomologists knew Ihat the sale of 

 tlie "Stainton library" was taking place, or whether the general want 

 of interest in entomological works, was responsil)le for the fact that 

 the number of private ])uyer3 at Sotheby's, on April li)th, miglit have 

 been counted on the lingers of one hand, and that about one half of 



