HESPERID^. 
261 
I Hesperidce are nearly related to any particular Heterocerous group or 
family. The connection so long supposed — from the resemblance of 
the antenuee and general fades — to exist between them and the 
singular moths of the Castnia group has been proved illusory, as no 
wider disparity in the whole Order can be found than that shown by 
I the simple almost unbranched condition of the neuration of the wings 
' in the Hesperidce and its highly complicated arrangement in Castnia and 
I allied forms.^ Throughout the Hesjperidm the peculiar neuration is so 
I remarkably constant, that it affords little or no means for discriminat- 
, ing genera ; and even Speyer, who has published ^ by far the most 
thorough investigation on this portion of the structure of the family 
I that has yet appeared, is constrained to regard as the most momentous 
; point for observation so slight a matter as the position of the lower 
\ radial nervule in the fore-wings, viz., whether it originates exactly mid- 
Iway between the upper radial and third median nervules, or nearer to 
one or the other of them. 
In strong contrast to the constancy of the wing-neuration is the 
irregularity with which the numerous secondary sexual characters pre- 
sented by the $ Hesperidce are distributed. These conspicuous badges, 
! consisting of a long costal or discal groove or fold, lined with peculiarly 
I formed scales in the fore-wings ; a felt-like patch of scales in the same 
wings ; a tuft or pencil of very long stiff hairs on the tibiae of the hind 
i pair of legs, or on the coxge of the front pair ; a very dense stiff fringe 
of hairs and scales on the tibiae and part of the tarsi of the first pair of 
legs; a great enlargement of the first joint of the tarsi of the hind 
pair, or a pair of long curved appendages attached to the thorax pos- 
i teriorly on the under side ; — occur or are totally wanting in species 
which are so intimately related as to be unquestionably congeneric. 
The characters of most value in this extremely difficult group 
(apart from the rarely-occurring absence of such salient ones as the 
additional pair of spurs on the hind-tibise, the solitary spur on the fore- 
tibise, or the extra-antennal tufts on the head), are those presented by 
the clavation of the antennse, and by the terminal joint of the palpi. 
Beyond these, one has to depend on such general features as the rela- 
tive robustness and length of the body, the size and shape of the wings, 
and the particular pattern of markings and system of colouring. 
It is most probable that when this entire Family has been as 
thoroughly studied as the few Paltearctic members of it have been by 
Speyer,^ a large proportion of the very numerous proposed and tacitly 
accepted genera will be no longer recognised ; for in no group of the 
Lepidoptera has there been more random and careless creation of 
generic names. The most moderate of recent writers on the JIcsjKridce, 
Herrich-Schaffer, tabulated 34 genera in 1869; Mr. W. Y. Kirby's 
^ See Westwood, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., Second Series, Zool., i. p. 155, &c., pi. 28-33 
(1877). 
^ Stett. Ent. Zcit,, 1879, p. 477, &c. 3 g^^^^ ZeiL, 1878 and 1879. 
