ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
175 
Fauna of British India. — The preceding volumes of this series * 
have dealt exclusively with the Yertebrata ; of the immense field entered 
on by commencing to classify and describe the Tnvertebrata of British 
India and Ceylon, some idea can be formed by the fact that in Moths 
alone at least 5000 species have to be dealt with. 
The part of Mr. G. F. Hampson’s present volume that is of interest 
to others than those who devote themselves specially to the study of 
Oriental Heterocera is the scheme of classification and synopsis of the 
families. It is almost needless to say that this in the main follows 
the admirable system evolved by Lederer and Herrick Schaffer. Yet 
many new elements are introduced, especially the use of vein 5 of the 
fore- wing as a primary character for the division of all the families into 
three groups. 
In the first group this vein is given off from the centre of the cell, and 
the Saturniidae are taken first as being the most specialized family, the 
series being carried down through the Eupterotidae, SphingidaB,Uraniidae, 
Geometridae and others, to the Notodontidae and Cymatophoridas. The 
two last families are unquestionably the lowest of the group, though it 
is doubtful if their ancestor sprang from some Noctuid form of the 
second group, of which Cyphanta is the nearest living representative, 
or, lower still, from some reed-boring form which would also have been 
the ancestor of the Pyrals and closely allied to the Cossidae, most nearly 
represented by the S. American Myelobia. 
The second group, in which vein 5 of the fore-wing is given off from 
the lower angle of cell, is regarded as divisible into four subsidiary 
groups of families, for the distinctions between which recourse must be 
had to the volume itself. To the first of these belong the Syntomidae, 
Zygaenidae, Cossidae, Arbelidae, Psychidae, and, lowest of all, the Hepia- 
lidae, with their twelve veins to the hind-wing, as in the fore-wing : to 
the second, the Limacodidae and Lasiocampidae : to the third, the 
Pterothyranidae, Lymantriidae, Hypsidae, Arctiidae, Agaristidae, and 
Noctuidae : to the fourth, the Callidulidae, Drepanulidae, Thyrididae, and 
Pyralidae. 
The third group, which is without doubt the lowest in the scale, and 
from some of the primitive forms of which the other two have sprung, 
is characterized by the veins of the fore- wing being given off at almost 
equal distances round the cell, being thus nearest the still more primi- 
tive form in which the veins all radiated from the base of the wing 
before the anastomosis of their basal portions formed the cell and present 
branching system of veins; this form is still represented in almost its 
primitive state, both as to neuration and structure of mouth-parts, by 
the lower Micropterygidac, which can hardly be differentiated from some 
forms of Neuroptera. In this group are placed the Sesiidse, Tinsegeriidse, 
the Tineidae, in its larger sense as including the Tortricinae, and, lastly, 
the Pterophoridac and Alucitidae. 
Caterpillars Living in Water.f— Dr. G. W. Muller describes the 
aquatic caterpillars of Hydrocampa nympiiseata and Cataclysta lemnse , and 
of two other species of Cataclysta , and one of Paraponyx from Brazil. 
The caterpillars of Hydrocampa nymphseata are unique in that they 
* * The Fauna of British India — Moths,’ by G. F. Hampson, vol. i. London, 
1892, 8vo, 527 pp., 333 figs. f Zool. Jahrb., vi. (1892) pp. 617-30 (1 pi.). 
