82 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



androconial cells are situated in certain Urbicolines. (3) The brush of 

 hairs sometimes developed in the $ s on the hindmost tibia?. (4) The 

 metasternal appendages, the " postpectus " of Kirby, developed on the 

 venter of the thorax. (5) The " abdominal fossa," a more or less 

 extensive excavation on the side of the anterior abdominal segments. 

 It is to be noted that the presence or absence of these characters 

 appears to be somewhat capricious. The $ s of some apparently 

 closely-allied species have, whilst others have not, the costal fold, and 

 the same is true of the discal androconial cell, e.g., Nisoniades tages 

 has, and the allied marloyi has not, a costal fold. 



The superfamily is generally known as the Hesperiides, a name 

 derived from the Fabrician Hesperia, but it is difficult to understand 

 why the much older Linnean name has been passed over, for, in 1758, 

 Linne separated (Sy sterna Naturae, xth ed., p. 482) the smaller butter- 

 flies — hairstreaks, blues, coppers and skippers — under the title Plebeii, 

 and further subdivided (op. cit., pp. 482, 484) them into the Rurales 

 and Urbicolae, the latter being, even at this time, absolutely restricted 

 to the " skippers." Pallas, in 1771, Fabricius, in 1775, 1781 and 

 1787, and Esper, in 1776, maintained the Linnean name. In 1780, 

 Goeze called them the Urbicolae, and in 1781, Barbut, using Urbicola 

 in a truly modern generic sense, fixed the type of the genus as comma, 

 Linn., no. 256," whilst, in 1788, Borkhausen subdivided the Linnean 

 Rurales into the Subcaudati (hairstreaks), Rutili (coppers), and Polyoph- 

 thalmi (blues), keeping, however, the Linnean name Urbicolae for the 

 skippers, whilst, more important than all, Fabricius himself, in 

 separating the Linnean Plebeii from the rest of the butterflies, and 

 renaming the group (Ent. Syst., iii., p. 258), in 1793, Hesperia, retained 

 the Linnean subdivisions, calling the blues, etc., the Hesperia-Rurales, 

 and the skippers the Hesperia- Urbicolae. So far, therefore, as Linne's 

 group names — Papilio, Nymphalis, Plebeius, Ruralis, Urbicola, etc. — 

 have any classificatory and nomenclatorial value, it is clear that the 

 " skippers " must be called the Urbicolides, and its typical genus, of 

 which Barbut named comma, Linn., no. 256, the type, Urbicola. 



In 1798, Cuvier fixed (Tabl. Klem., p. 588) malrae, Linn., as the 

 type of Hesperia, Fab., although it may be further noted that 

 Fabricius' later action (Illiger Magazin), in 1807, shows conclusively 

 that he did not consider the Urbicolae of Linne a typical section 

 of his comprehensive group Hesperia, for he himself restricted 

 the name to a group of blues, of which boeticus is one of the best- 

 known species, creating Thymele and Pamphila for the skippers, and 

 dropping the hitherto-used Urbicola altogether. 



It is remarkable that, besides the unanimity with which the early 

 authors used the Linnean name, Urbicola, for the skippers, there was 

 really no attempt to classify them until Hiibner did so in 1816. In 

 lh'01, Schrank renamed (Fauna Boica, ii., pt. 1, p. 157) the Urbicolae 

 of Linne, Erynnis (including malrae (alceae), fritillum, tages, comma, 

 line.a, speculum), and, in 1805, Latreille (Hist. Nat. Crust, et Ins.) 

 called them Hesperia, carrying out for the first time Cuvier's restriction 

 of Fabricius' name for Linne's Plebeii. and divided them into two 

 groups — 



* It is unfortunate that Barbut after fixing the type of Urbicola as comma, 

 Linn., no. 25(5, described and figured flava (thaumas) as comma, a blunder that does 

 not, however, vitiate his action in fixing comma, Linn., as type. 



