CLASSIFICATION OF LEPIDOPTERA. 103 



this be granted, it follows that no scheme of classification that is not 

 founded upon a consideration of the structural details and peculiarities 

 of the insects in all their stages can be considered as really sound, or 

 as founded upon a natural basis. It is also evident that the results 

 of the various systems — whether based on oval, larval, pupal or 

 imaginal characters — must be compared, and the sum total of evidence 

 brought together, if a satisfactory result is to be obtained." It is on 

 these lines that we have attempted to base the system of classification 

 adopted in this work. 



In the determination of the relationships existing not only between 

 the stirpes themselves, but between the superfamilies of each stirps, 

 considerable literature has had to be digested, and the results compared 

 with our own knowledge of the living insects. The points to which 

 attention has been directed and the literature that we have found most 

 useful for our purpose are as follows : — I. The egg. — By far the best 

 (we may say the only) work on the characters presented by the lepi- 

 dopterous egg, is Chapman's paper, " The phylogeny and evolution 

 of the Lepidoptera from a pupal and oval standpoint." 1 Since the 

 publication of this paper, we have examined the eggs of some three or 

 four hundred species of Lepidoptera, belonging to different families, 

 and find his conclusions corroborated. II. The larva. — Here we 

 are chiefly indebted to (1) Dyar's " Classification of lepidopterous 

 larva?," 2 "Additional notes on the classification of lepidopterous 

 larva?," 3 " A combination of two classifications of Lepidoptera,"* and 

 " Eelationship of Pyralidae and Pterophoridae from the larva?." 5 

 "Larva? of the Higher Bombyces." 6 (2) Chapman's "Observa- 

 tions on larval prolegs," 7 "Notes on Micro-Lepidoptera, whose 

 larva? are external feeders." 8 (3) Packard's " Study of the trans- 

 formations and anatomy of Lar/oa crispata, etc.," 9 "Life-history 

 of certain moths of the family CocJiliopodidae," 10 " Life-histories of 

 certain moths of the families Ceratocampidae, Hemileucidae, etc.," 11 and 

 many other papers. (4) Poulton's " On the ontogeny of Sphinx convol- 

 vuli and Aglia tau," 12 and various less important papers by other 

 authors. III. The pupa. — Chapman and Packard alone here give 

 real help. (1) Chapman's papers are, " On a lepidopterous pupa with 

 functionally active mandibles," 13 "Notes on pupa?, etc.," 14 " On Alucita 

 hexadactyla, chiefly 'in relation to the structure of the pupa," 15 "On 

 some neglected points in the Heterocerous pupa," 16 as well as " The 

 phylogeny and evolution of the Lepidoptera from a pupal and oval 

 standpoint," to which we have already referred. (2) Packard's 

 "New classification of the Lepidoptera." 17 IV. The imago. — We 



1. Trans. Ent. Soc Lond., 1896, pp. 567 et seq. 



2. Ann. Neiv York Acad. Sci., viii., pp, 194 et seq. 



3. Trans. Neio York Acad. Sci., xiv., pp. 49 et seq. 



4. Journal New York Ent. Soc, 1895, pp, 17 et seq. 



5. Entom. News, Feb., 1895. 



6. Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xxvii., pp. 127 et seq. 



7. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1893, pp. 97 et seq. 



8. Ibid., 1894, pp. 335 et seq. 



9. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc, xxxii., pp. 275 et seq. 



10. Ibid., xxxi., pp, 83 et seq. 



11. Ibid., pp. 139 et seq. 



12. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1888, pp. 515 et seq. 13. Ibid., 1893, pp. 255 et seq. 

 14. Ibid., 1896, pp. 129 et seq. 15. Entomologist's Record, etc., vii.,No. 11, 1896, 

 16. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1893. 17. Bombrjcine Moths of America, 1895. 



