24 
tion with some of the distasteful African butterflies—may have to be 
regarded as a fourth subfamily. I am exhibiting Aletis helcita because 
Mr. Burrows considers its genitalia those of true Acidalia ( Leptoiveris ); 
a very interesting finding, as he arrived at it quite independently, not 
knowing that the neuration was also favourable in some particulars to 
this association. It would really be no more strange to learn that 
some of these big fellows were true Acidaliids than—what we are now 
getting familiar with—that Cossus is a true Tortricid. 
The Acidaliinae proper, comprises slightly over thirty British 
species. The precise number recognised will depend upon the view 
one takes of such aliens as perochraria, striyaria , herbariata, or such 
weak claimants of specific right as eircellata and mancuniata. On the 
Guenee system, which I have already been abusing, these fall into 
only three genera: Hyria (a preoccupied name, by the way) and 
Timandra (a synonym of Calothysanis *), each with one species, and 
Acidalia with all the rest. Herrich-Schaeffer, Speyer, and Lederer, 
before Guenee wrote, had sorted out the last-named into sections, 
by good structural characters; and Herrich-Schaeffer (followed by 
von Heinemann in 1859) had even made them into full genera; 
Lederer, whom Staudinger blindly followed, was unfortunately content 
to regard the sections as less than generic, hence it is that the 
continental books (like the British, with the sole exception of Meyrick) 
are still merging genera which are far easier to separate by valid 
characters than, say, Boarmia and Gnophos. 
Indeed, the sorting out of the Acidaliinae when one begins to take 
an interest in structure, is really not a formidable matter. Those who 
are of opinion that an Emersonian law of “Compensation ” pervades 
almost everything in the realm of Nature, may like to think that the 
Wave Moths make up to the student in differences of venation and 
leg-structure what they withhold from him in diversity of colour or 
pattern. If one had to say whether a scaleless specimen of a Carpet 
Moth belonged to Cidaria or Anticlea or Hydriontena, etc., I am afraid 
one would find it no easy task; but a scaleless Wave could be assigned 
quite readily to its own genus. To avoid unncessary technicalities, I 
will not discuss the venation question ; it is rather a special subject, 
and moreover Meyrick and Turner have not found it needful to take 
very prominent notice of it in dealing with the genera now before us. 
A great deal can be done with leg-structure alone, and this can be 
seen with the naked eye, or at any rate with such pocket lenses as are 
often in evidence in this room, though perhaps they have oftener been 
used for looking at an egg than at a leg. • 
The “ Blood-vein ” ( Calothysanis ) is sufficiently distinct from the 
rest in form and general facies; but the pectinated $ antenna, and 
the four-spurred hindleg in both sexes, give additional distinctions. 
“ Hyria ” muricata (which is probably the type of Hiibner’s genus 
Eon) differs little, if at all, in structure from Ptychopoda ; but its 
different coloration and facies suggest that it would be rash to sink it 
* Calothysanis, Hiibner, Verz., 301, ?18‘26 (Packard restr., 1876), type, amata, 
Linn.; Timandra, Duponchel, Hist. Nat. L6p., viii. (2), 105, 224, 1829, type 
amata, Linn.; Bradyepetes, Stephens, III. Haust., iii., 201, 1831, type, amata, 
Linn. Erastria, Hiibner, Tent., 1806 (ined.?), is now considered invalid. 
XX. 
