46 
1898, said : “It maybe doubted whether any group of animals exhibits 
a better character than theneuration of insects, which displays sufficient 
complexity and variation in the number and interconnection of the 
different veins, whilst at the same time it is practically unaffected by 
external forces except occasionally the easily calculable influence of a 
change in the form of wing ; moreover the modifications effected are 
often irrevocable, and therefore less puzzling to follow.” That the 
modificationsareirrevocableisadmittedly true, but that the change in the 
form of wing is an easily calculated influence cannot always be the case, 
particularly in the hindwing. But from the very fact that a change 
in the form of wing brings about neurational change, it is clear that we 
should treat the subject with that knowledge, and not implicitly cling 
to any and every phase of neuration. This change in the form of wing 
seems to be the only weak spot in the value of neuration, and if we can 
calculate, as Meyrick says we can, the influence, there is no reason why 
in conjunction with other important characters (which is all-important) 
we should not place the greatest value we can upon it. Of individual 
variety of neuration, for which reason some workers almost totally 
ignore that structure, there is this to be said, viz., that it is only what one 
must expect. No two individuals, be they of any order from man down¬ 
wards, are identical even in structure. In the great majority of cases the 
variation is only a variation in size, be it length, breadth or thickness, 
but variation in the position of any one structure is not unheard of, in 
fact the one is rather an outcome of the other in the system of neura¬ 
tion, and it seems to me possible to imagine that if a moth has anyone 
vein particularly well-developed, say in length, the vein in closest 
proximity to it will be probably correspondingly shorter, and will 
therefore of necessity terminate or arise in a different position. It is 
obvious that, with a complex structure like the neuration, any such 
small primary variation can be the cause of further variation when the 
one vein is dependent upon its position to others. To shut one’s eyes 
to the value, apart from the utility of neuration as a means of classify¬ 
ing, is, in the face of results now arrived at, inexcusable. Inde¬ 
pendently of the assistance of other characters we place Arctiids, 
Noctuids, and Lymantriids in close relationship, and this is also the 
result arrived at by study of the embryological stages. It must therefore 
be obvious that our work in this direction is of real value. Until now 
the great obstacle to its general acceptance is the fact that the workers 
who have taken up the subject are one-sided. It is perfectly true that 
we all tend to be specialists, and, moreover, the age we live in deiAands 
it, but we all require a general education first, and w T e should not lose 
touch with it as soon as we begin to specialise. If the work of Meyrick 
and Hampson had from the beginning been tempered with con¬ 
siderations of biology, which I have called the “ general educa¬ 
tion,” I venture to think that the study of neuration would have 
attracted much more attention than it has done. I alluded above to 
the correct result of neuration in placing Arctiids, Noctuids, and 
Lymantriids close together in descent, but on referring to Hampson’s 
further arrangement we find that Notodonts are separated from these by 
such families as Sjdiim/idac and Cymcitopharidae. The futility of such an 
arrangement has already been exposed by Dr. Chapman from egg 
characters, who has shown us that Notodontidae have upright eggs, 
and must therefore be correlated with other upright-egged families of 
