554 The American Naturalist. [June, 
family, Noctuide, as Strigina pox, by which name Savigny re- 
fers to his figure of the lepidopterous mouth-parts most widely 
copied by subsequent authors of zoological text-books. In the 
figure of Hadena may be noted the pilifers, (see fig. 11, pf. plate 
XXV), but no indication of mandibular rudiments. In Sav- 
igny’s reference to the lepidopterous mandibles he says that 
they are in all cases fringed very thickly with hairs on their 
inner margin (“ -+-+dans tous bordées de cils trés-épais sur 
leur tranchant interieur ”), (see a, b, c, fig. 1). He is evidently 
describing the pilifers which present just this condition. New- 
port in his article “ Insecta” in Todd’s Cyclopedia of Anatomy 
and Physiology (1836-39), discussing the mouth-parts of Sphinx 
ligustri says: “On each side of labrum are the rudiments of 
the mandibles. They are two minute triangular plates 
attached in part to the labrum and margin of the clypeus to 
which, as Savigny has remarked, they appear to be soldered. 
They are applied to the base of the maxilla, and in Sphinx ap- 
pear each to be formed of two parts, and are covered along 
their margin with hairs.” As already noted, it is among the 
sphinges that we find conspicuous rudimentary mandibles and 
pilifers present, with distinct insertions and with the charac- 
teristic features of the sclerites. It is the outer one of New- 
port’s “two parts” which is the mandibular remnant, and the 
inner hair-bearing one which is the labral pilifer (see fig. 12, 
md. and pf., plate XXV). 
This erroneous impression regarding the identity of the 
lepidopterous mandibles receives, as already noted, common 
acceptance through the representations in the standard text- 
books. Figure 530, p. 556, in Claus’s Lehrbuch der Zoologie 
(5th ed., 1891) is after Savigny’s original figure of the mouth 
parts of the Noctuid, Strigina pox. The sclerites lettered md. 
and called mandibles are the pilifers. In figure 104, p. 153, 
in Graber’s Die Insekten (1877) the sclerites lettered /, and 
designated as mandibles, are the pilifers. In Packard’s Guide 
to the Study of Insects, on page 232, in Hyatt and Arm’s 
Insecta, plate IX, and elsewhere, the so-called mandibles are 
the pilifers. In Lang’s text-book of Comparative Anatomy, P- 
448, fig. 307, the pilifers are figured as parts of the labrum ; 
the figure probably is after Walter. 
