PHALAENAE; BOMBYCES. By Dr. A. Seitz. CASTNIIDAE. By Dr. E. Strand. 
15 
Phalaenae. 
The Rhopalocera having been dealt with in the 13th volume are neither in the Ethiopian Region without 
intermediate stage by which they are connected with the Heterocera. In the American Fauna the Phalaenae 
were approached by the Megathymus, in the Indo-Australian by the strange Hesperid Euschemon rajflesiae. 
In the African Region Pemphigostola described as Castniida seemed to approximate the Rhopalocera, and besides 
the Apoprogenes being described later on represent transitions between Hesperidae and Zygaenidae. 
The total proportion between the Phalaenae and Rhopalocera of course varies a great deal according 
to the district. In the sun-burnt deserts and steppes without any vegetation it is frequently 1 : 3, if one leaves 
out the microlepidoptera which have scarcely yet been investigated in the more inaccessible districts. The 
more luxuriant the vegetation grows in a district, the more the Rhopalocera increase in contrast to the Heterocera 
which remain rather the same, so that we find the number of forms described, comprehending the Bombyces 
and Sphinges which shall be dealt with in this volume, to be in the end rather the same as the number of Rho¬ 
palocera described up to this day. This equality, however, seems but apparently to be so, since in the more 
than 3000 Bombyces and about 180 Sphinges that have been described almost every name signifies a distinct 
species, whereas the greatest part of the names of the Rhopalocera can be merely regarded as the denomination 
of a local race, a subspecies, an aberration, seasonal form, or as the name for some subordinate form of one of the 
numerous polymorphous species. 
We have kept up the opposition of the forms inserted in this volume by the collective names of ..Bom¬ 
byces" and Sphinges 1 ', in order to remain in accord with the only catalogue of Heterocera, which comprises 
all the genera dealt with here, and with the numerous monographies that have also followed this catalogue. 
The fact that some of the families being dealt with in the following lines would be better placed to the 
,, Microlepidoptera" , as they are without bounds of this work, shall not be touched upon the less so since 
the ,, Marcolepidoptera “ are meant to deal with those groups that are ranged under this heading in the 
collections of most of the readers and users of our work. 
I. Division: Bombyces. 
The number of families which, according to old custom, are apportioned to this division, lias increased 
rather considerably of late. In the Vol. 2, 6 and 10 we have already mentioned what can be told in common 
about such heterogeneous forms. The way these families are proportionate to one another is altogether 
variable. Of those families that are otherwise represented in the Old World, the Ethiopian Fauna lacks those 
of the Cymatophoridae and Callidulidae. A number of smaller groups which, however, might be more cor¬ 
rectly subordinated as subfamilies in others, such as Endromidae, Lemoniidae, the genera Epicopeia, Epi- 
pyrops, Pterothysanus and Cocytius which some authors have likewise raised to the rank of families, are in 
Africa likewise without any known representatives, and finally we miss the specifically American groups 
of Ceratocampidae, Perophoridae, Dalceridae, and Dioptidae. 
The proportion of the total numbers is about such that the number of Bombyces known amounts 
to about the same number of 3000 of the Rhopalocera, Noctuae and the whole microlepidoptera, whereas the 
Geometridae probably do not quite reach half of this number. 
1. Family: Castnsidae. 
Referring to what has been said in general of the Castmidae in the Indo-Australian and American parts 
of this work we content ourselves with succinctly commenting upon the only Pemphigostolina known from 
the African Region; it has been described at large in the ,,Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift“ 1909, 
