800 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Mr. Lewis found that the author (p. 623) endorsed the opinion 

 that Lepisma is a borer. Mr. Home alluded to the damage 

 done to silk garments in India by Lepisma; the insect 

 evidently attacking the silks on account of the stiffening 

 matters in them, but, nevertheless, making holes in the 

 fabric. 



Grouping of British Macro- Lepldoptera. — Mr. W. A. 

 Lewis read a paper on the order of the groups of the Macro- 

 Lepidoptera. He criticised and condemned the arrange- 

 ment introduced by Mr. Doubleday.'s List of 1859, and 

 accompanied the statement of his views with a variety of 

 comments on the modern works dealing with his subject, 

 particularly Dr. Knaggs' 'Cabinet List of Lepidoptera' and 

 Mr. Newman's ' Natural History of British Moths.' The 

 paper first stated the order of arrangement by different 

 authors from Linnaeus to the present day, the conclusion 

 arrived at being that the Linnean order was followed almost 

 without deviation by every author down to the year 1859 ; 

 also that the Linnean names of the different groups were 

 adopted very generally until the same date. Mr. Lewis 

 remarked that since 1859 we, in England, had been subjected 

 to the discomfort of having two rival systems of arrangement, 

 the followers of neither of which take the smallest recognition 

 of the other. He noticed severally the groups of Doubleday's 

 List, and stated, successively, reasons against the acceptance 

 of the names Diurni, Nocturni, Drepanulse and Pseudo- 

 Bombyces ; contending, in effect, that, in the case of the two 

 first-named groups, the new names were, from their history, 

 inapplicable ; and as to the others, that both divisions had 

 prior names. He also objected to the name " Pseudo- 

 Bouibyces," on the further ground that the scheme of classi- 

 fication, of which that group forms part, does not acknowledge 

 a group " Bombyces," and therefore a group " Pseudo- 

 Bombyces," in the same scheme, is a solecism. Mr. Lewis 

 expressed his belief that the existence of the group Pseudo- 

 Bombyces was entirely owing to the necessity, in M. 

 Guenee's view, of maintaining the order of the Noctuaj 

 whifch he, and other authors, had observed. To do this it 

 was necessary to place them in the old position next after 

 some Bombyciform genera, as the group had been arranged 

 to " face towards" Bombyx. Mr. Lewis contended that the 



