411 
conducted this summer will demonstrate whether this substance can 
be used as a substitute for Paris green, to which it is very superior in 
the matter of fineness of division, and will cost about one-half less. 
GENERAL NOTES. 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF LEPIDOPTERA. 
The absence of a rational classification of* the order Lepidoptera, 
based upon the structural features of all parts of the body, instead of 
upon shape, size, mouth-parts, leg-armature, and wing- venation only, 
has always been a source of wonder to students. Of late the genitalia 
have been used in certain groups ; but no systematic study of the struc- 
ture of the order as a whole has been attempted by any lepidopterist. 
It is not strange that a broad and careful man like Prof. J. H. Corn- 
stock should have halted in dismay in the preparation of a text-book 
on entomology on reaching the point where it became necessary, in 
pursuance of his general plan, to introduce an analytical table sep- 
arating the families of Lepicloptera. Perhaps Professor Comstock may 
have remembered an early experience, when, in 1879, he sent the same 
moth in succession to four different specialists in Lepicloptera. One 
determined it as a new genus of Tineina, another as a new genus of 
Tortricina, a third as a new genus of Pyralida?, and a fourth as a new 
genus of Zygainidse ! 
However this may be, Professor Comstock saw the necessity for a 
new classification, and in his admirable essay entitled u Evolution and 
Taxonomy," published in the Wilder Birthday Book, and reviewed on 
pages 272, 273 of volume vi of Insect Life, he gives a tentative new 
classification of the Lepidoptera, based almost entirely upon wing- vena- 
tion and the special structures by which the wings are held together. 
Although this classification is based practically upon but one element 
of the complex, it was reached only after profound study of the problem 
upon evolutional grounds, and it was published more as an illustrative 
record of the results obtained by his work than as a classification to be 
accepted and practically used. The author expressed his antic ipation, 
however, that equally careful study of other elements would lead to the 
same result, and that the proposed classification would be strengthened 
thereby. The proposed classification was so revolutionary in its char- 
acter that it united two families which had previously been placed 
nearly at opposite extremes of the old system, viz, the Micropterygidse 
and the Hepialida?, forming a suborder which he called the Jugatse. It 
is very fitting that further study of other points should be undertaken 
by Mr. V. L. Kellogg, who has been associated with Professor Comstock 
at Stanford University. In a paper published in the Kansas University 
Quarterly for July, 1894, and reviewed on page 110 of this volume, lie 
considered especially the clothing of the wings of Lepidoptera. and 
ascertained that the results of his observations confirmed in a broad 
