80 
MEMOIES OF TEE i^ATIOyAL ACADEMY OF SCIEIS^CES. 
Another fact considered was that the larva of ^lelancJiroia {3L eephise and M, geometroides)^ 
formerly associated with the Lithosiidie, has been shown by Dewitz to be geometrids. Another is 
the absence of a pair of legs in tlie E'olidjh, which I find innst, by their pupal and other characters, 
be regarded as a distinct family from the Lithosiida?. Still another fact is the conclusion I have 
arrived at that the Lithosiidm have almost directly descended from the Tineidic or from an extinct 
group closely allied to them, -and that from the Lithosiidne have arisen not only the Dioptidie, 
perhaps including Phryganidia, the Cyllopodidic, and Hypsidte, but also the Syntomidae and 
Nyctemerida?, as well as the Arctiidjc, 
On reexamining the larva, pupa, and imago of Phryganidia (we have no knowledge of the 
transformations of the genuine Dioptidm as at present limited), it has seemed to me that the 
genus has little of fundamental value to separate it from the geometrid moths. 
First, as to the larva of Phryganidia, while in the shape of the head and the slender cylindrical 
body it differs little from the larva of Melanchroia and that of geometrids in general, if the two 
anterior pairs of abdominal legs were atrophied there would be no essential difierence. That this 
is probable is seen in the larva of Nola, which has but four paix'S of abdominal legs, one pair being 
atrophied. 
The end of the body (eighth abdominal segment) is humped, but the larvm of the East Indian 
Eusemia and Eypsa are also humped at the end of the body, Phryganidia only differs in being 
slenderer and without hairs, and seems more closely allied to the larvae of the Hypsidae than to 
that of any of the allied groups. It does not spin a cocoon. 
The pui)a is obtected, and in its essential features more like those of geometrids than those of 
Lithosiidm or any Zygmnid or Syntomid genera. It is naked and suspended by a remarkably long 
cremaster; the end of the abdomen is otherwise peculiar. The head presents no vestigial 
characters, there being no traces of maxillary palpi, of paraclyixeal pieces, or apparently of labial 
palpi (fig. 46). With a complete knowledge of all its stages, it is still difficult to assign it a definite 
position. When we know more about the Dioptidte, where it probably belongs, the problem may 
approach a solution, but that its affinities are closely with the Geometridm is shown by comparing 
the ])upa with that of Cleora. In the general shape of the head, of the eyes, of the front, and 
especially of the abdomen, tlie resemblance is close: the peculiar shape and markings of the last 
three abdominal segments are nearly identical in both genera, though the cremaster of Cleora is 
much shorter. 
In this connection reference should be made to the striking resemblance between the pupie 
of (Eta aurea and Cleora pulchraria. To my great astonishment I find the pupa of Cleora has 
the same vestigial head-charactei'S as CEta; the general shape of the pupa is the same; the mode 
of dehiscence the same, the shape of the vertex and its mode of separating when the moth issues 
from the puxxa case; also the same shape of the eyes, of the peculiar clypeus and labrum, while the 
more pronounced vestigial characters are the labial palpi, forming a triangular area, and the large 
semidetached paraclypeal pieces. Cleora shows that it is a more modern form in having no 
traces of a vestigial eye-collar (maxillary pali)i) such as occur (though very slightly developed) in 
Oita. The shape of the end of the body, with the cremaster, is much the same, the shorter 
cremaster of Cleora being an adaptation to its life in a slight openwork cocoon. In the peculiar 
markings of the eighth and ninth abdominal segments Cleora is more like Phryganidia. 
Judging by the pupal characters, then, the Geometridm have directly descended from the 
Lithosiidie, the latter, as I have satisfied myself, having directly oi'igiuated from the generalized 
Tineina. 
The imago of Phryganidia appears not to difier much from those of the Dioptida?, to which it 
has been referred by Butler, I am unable to see any imimrtant differences between the Dioptidm 
and Cyllopodidm, thougb my material is scanty. In the slender body, shape of the head, and 
xmoportions of the clypeus, shape of anteuiifc aud palpi, both of these families do not essentially 
differ from IMelauchroia, which is now known to be a geometrid, nor from the geometrids 
themselves. 
In its venation Phryganidia is nearly identical with that of a Josia from Jalapa, Mexico, in 
my collection; the ixeculiarity is the origin of veins II2 and III3 from a common stem, in which 
-Phryganidia apparently differs from some if not all other Dioptidic. But the venatiou of the 
