44 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi. v. 
Cutting open the other side of the cocoon, I found that the pupa shell 
was sucked nearly dry of its contents. The Cecropia cocoons occur 
commonly on white maples and are generally placed near the ends of 
the long drooping branches, and it will be seen from the foregoing that 
it is probably the safest situation afforded by the tree. If a woodpecker 
is successful in making a hole into a cocoon, it is, nevertheless, some¬ 
times disappointed at its contents. I have found a cocoon that con¬ 
tained the tough pupa case of the Ophion ichneumon fly, that had been 
drilled in the side by a woodpecker, and then abandoned, leaving the 
parasite unharmed. 
-+- 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SATURNIIDES. 
By A. Radcliffe Grote, A. M. 
The publication by Dr. Dyar * of a critical notice of my recent 
paper (June, 1896) f on the Saturniides , affords me, in replying, the 
opportunity of briefly stating the characters which I found in the group. 
I founded the two families into which the superfamily naturally divides 
(any other division being in my opinion unnatural) as follows: 
Vein IV, anastomosing with IV X 
Vein IV 2 out of the cross-vein .... 
Saturniid^.' 
.... AGLIIDAi, 
Perhaps some reason should have been given by Dr. Dyar for call¬ 
ing this fundamental difference in the neuration “artificial,” while con¬ 
tracting it with a “natural classification which should combine severa. 
such special ones.” But this combination does not exist; it remains 
ideal. It reminds one of the hazy statement, that we must take charac¬ 
ters from all parts of the insect, which procedure, without a stric 
weighing of values, would lead us nowhere. But the fact is, that al 
though I have taken the structure of the Radius as the principal charac¬ 
ter, determining as it does the dichotomous division of the superfamily 
I have not left out of sight the characters of differentiation offered by th< 
larvae and cocoons. I have worked out the gradual modifications^ 
the Radius in the highest of the two families. I have not “selected” : 
random or arbitrary character, which would in the end fail. I hav> 
been obliged to take the fundamental character which carries with it al 
* Can. Ent. XXVIII, 270. 
t Mittheilungen aus dem Roemer Museum zu Hildesheim, No. 6. 
