5374 Insects. 



twenty-four sections into which he splits the second tribe of his Noc- 

 tuelles. 



It must be admitted on all sides that M. Guenee displays a most 

 profound knowledge of the subject he has undertaken. The* ' Histoire 

 des Insectes Lepidopteres,' will doubtless become the standard 

 work of modern days ; and if it brings to bear upon the subject a 

 higher amount of practical knowledge than any other it must be the 

 basis of that great desideratum, a universal nomenclature of the Lepi- 

 doptera. Of the work, the first volume, comprising the butterflies, is 

 by M. Boisduval and Guenee ; the second, third and fourth are not 

 published ; the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, by M. Guenee, com- 

 prise his eight divisions of the Heterocera; and the Geometridse is 

 shortly to be published. Below I give from M. Guenee an arrangement 

 of the British species of Deltoides and Pyralites. It is fortunate that 

 most of the generic types occur in this country. I propose, if accept- 

 able to British entomologists, that the arrangement of Boisduval and 

 Guenee be used for naming their collections of Lepidoptera. If any 

 one can make a better proposition I will adopt it, for one. It is, how- 

 ever, quite time that this subject were set at rest, that all our energies 

 may be free for the study of other departments of our favourite 

 science. 



HETEROCERA. 

 Div. 7. Deltoides, Lat. 



General Characters. — Larvae with deep indentations, the segments 

 often knotted and hairy, but never velvety or completely glabrous, with 

 six feet scaly and the two anal feet constant; the ventrals never vary 

 more than from six to eight. The larvae are never closed in cases or 

 between the two membranes of leaves. They live solitary upon trees 

 or lo\j r plants. 



Chrysalides unarmed, smooth ; abdominal rings free, conical, and 

 terminating in hooks or spines. They are contained in cocoons spun 

 between leaves or in the ground. 



Imago. Antenna slender, cylindrical, always pubescent, ciliated or 

 pectinated in the male, and garnished with isolated hairs in the 

 female ; often dilated or marked above the middle with squamose or 

 velvety nodosities. Labial palpi only visible, compressed, never 

 recumbent* always protruding beyond the head, either stretching for- 

 ward or else surrounding it to rise above it, or even to be thrown upon 

 the thorax ; the second joint always long, the third always distinct 



