622 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Australian Species of Amathia.* * * § — Dr. P. H. MacGillivray, whose 
death, we regret to say, has been lately announced, and who began to 
write on Australian Polyzoa in 1859, has a paper on the Australian 
species of this genus in which he gives descriptions and figures of all 
(14) with which he was acquainted, and it is trusted that now Australian 
observer^ will have no difficulty in identifying their forms. 
Arthropoda. 
a. Insecta. 
Evolution-Studies of Lepidopfera.f — Dr. T. Garbowski gives a 
critical summary of some recent work. Pie begins with E. Fischer’s J 
experiments on the influence of temperature. Out of 500 pupae of 
Vanessa io, kept three weeks on ice, 15 turned out a new variety, Fischeri 
Stdfs. ; out of another lot of 600, 50 were transitional to this new variety ; 
out of 1000, 12 were of the Fischeri variety, several were transitional, 
and many normal. Many similar experiments were made, from the 
results of which Fischer argued to phylogenetic relationship, regard- 
ing the above variety, Fischeri , for instance, as the glacial form of 
Vanessa io. 
Garbowski then gives an account of C. Schroder’s § observations on 
the development of markings on caterpillars, and on the influence of 
surrounding colour on these. Schroder worked chiefly with Geometridae, 
after a manner which Poulton’s experiments have made familiar. The 
nature of the marking varied with the colour and form of the surround- 
ing objects, but the degree of intensity in the illumination appeared to 
be the most important factor. 
Eecent Attempts to Classify Lepidoptera.§ — Mr. J. W. Tutt has 
made an attempt to correlate the results arrived at in recent papers upon 
the classification of Lepidoptera. His essay takes the form of a critical 
notice of the work of Hampson, Comstock, Chapman, and Dyar. He finds 
that the results agree in one important particular, in that they substan- 
tiate the apparently sweeping innovations which Dr. Chapman made as 
regards the relations of various families of Lepidoptera. Probably his 
paper was the most severe blow which the Bombyces as a collective 
group ever received, whilst it has revolutionised our ideas of the Tineina. 
On one point all are agreed, and that is, that the Micropterygidse and 
Hepialidse come at the very bottom of the list, while these are followed 
by various families which have been hitherto placed high up in the 
scale. He compares the classifications based on pupal and larval 
characters with that proposed by Comstock on the presence of a jugum 
or frenulum, and with that on a study of the setiferous tubercules, as 
well as with Mr. Hampson’s classification, which is based on characters 
derived from neuration. On the whole, it is striking .how much the 
* Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, vii. (1895) pp. 131-40 (4 pis). 
t Biol. Centralbl., xv. (1895) pp. 657-72. 
% Cited as ‘ Transmutation der Schmetterlinge infolge Tempera turveranderun gen. 
Experimen telle Untersuchungen uber die Pliylogenese der Vanessen,’ Berlin, 1895, 
8vo, 36 pp. 
§ Cited as ‘ Entwicklung der Raupenzeichnung und Abhangigkeit der letzteren 
von der Farbe der Umgebung,’ Berlin, 1894, 8vo, 67 pp., 1 pi. 
|| Trans. Entomol. Soc. Lond., 1895, pp. 343-62. 
