﻿110 CLEMENS' SYNOPSIS OF 



resemblance pervades the details of structure, whilst it is characterized by a multitude 

 of ultimate peculiarities ; and it is to the general resemblance of structure, as well as 

 to a distinct pattern of form, that we should look for that which distinguishes the 

 family. This may be a very comprehensive conception, the genera composing which 

 are a series of special modifications, carried out in a variety of modes, having simili- 

 tude of external form for its basis. 



It is, however, difficult to convey a conception of form by means of words alone, 

 and it is important to substitute some portion of structure easily described and recog- 

 nized, and which is always found to be associated with the essential conception of 

 family. The agreement existing between general antennal forms and the structure of 

 the wings, has already been alluded to, and I am about to make an application of the 

 fact to which perchance objections will be made, in consequence of the changes it may 

 produce in the number of families included in the section to which the present one 

 belongs. Recent classification has greatly multiplied the number of these family 

 groups, and it is with reluctance and self-distrust, that I find myself compelled to pro- 

 pose a character that will necessitate retrogression. The conclusion to which the 

 study of pterology has brought me, are the results of independent investigation, com- 

 menced at a time when I was not aware it had been introduced into modern classifi- 

 cation, and I have been unable to find that it has received at the hands of any sys- 

 tematise the interpretation which will be given to it. The American student occupies, 

 perhaps, a position too isolated to propose an innovation ; it is not, however, offered 

 with this view, nor with the expectation that it will change systems already estab- 

 lished, where lepidopterology has been for many generations a favorite study, but to 

 present to the students of my own country, where it is still inceptive, what I believe 

 to be founded in nature, and what has furnished me with an easily acquired key, that 

 opens the mysterious door of natural affinities in the perfect insect. 



Investigation confirms, that in any given species the neuration of the wings, or the 

 pterogostic characters, are invariably identical in all the individuals of the species, 

 throughout its entire geographical range. There may be, it is true, what might be 

 called individual monstrosities, but they are of extremely rare occurrence, and consist 

 simply of an approximation of the origin of branches, or unnatural inosculations 

 which are so unimportant, that they never change the specific type, and can never 

 mislead when the observer has more than one specimen at command. This specific 

 wing structure may characterize all the individuals of a family, or it may undergo 

 conformable variation in the various genera of a family, the conditions regulating which 

 I have been unable to generalize. But, in this case, it is nearly always accompanied 

 by variation in the ultimate peculiarities of antennal structure, whilst the type in the 

 posterior wings is essentially unchanged, whatever may be the variation in the anterior. 

 Now, the wings are one of the most important parts of structure, which go to deter- 



