Notes on Butterfly Pupae, with some remarks 
on the Phylogenesis of the Rhopalocera. 
By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.E.S. 
The object of this paper is to furnish an analysis of certain details 
in the structure of the pupas of the Rhopalocera. These details have 
been found to be very interesting in the case of the Heterocera, 
where they appear to give indications of the lines of evolution of the 
different groups and families at least as plainly as any other details of 
structure that have been studied with a view to tracing these relation¬ 
ships, and in the main to point to phylogenetic arrangements very 
similar to those which have been elucidated in other ways by various 
authorities, and so to lend valuable support to the change which has 
been made in the position of some of the families. 
I may say that, with the butterfly at least as much as with the 
moth, I have found it necessary actually to handle the pupa, or pupa- 
case, in order to understand it, as hardly any description or figure 
gives the requisite information. It is true that from a figure, the pupa 
of, say, Callidryas (an American genus between Colias and Gonepteryx ) 
can be seen to present a similar form and structure to that of Colias or 
Gonepteryx; but one is, so far as the figure goes, left quite in the dark 
as to precisely what that form and structure are, and can only judge 
thereof by one’s knowledge of the pupa of Colias or Gonepteryx, or 
some similar pupa. But in any family of which one has not actually 
handled a pupa, a figure or description is generally of very little use. 
Further, a great many descriptions deal only with general form and 
coloration, and not with minute'structure. 
I must here express my indebtedness to Scudder’s Butterflies of New 
England for much information on the morphology and classification of 
butterflies. The classification which he adopts is a modification of that 
first proposed by Bates, and is one which my observation of pupge 
confirms, not only broadly but in considerable detail. This fact gives 
me great confidence that the view which I take of the value of certain 
points in pupal structure must be largely correct. 
In Scudder’s book much light is thrown upon almost every point 
relating to butterflies, and it is unquestionably the profoundest and 
most able work yet published on this section of the Lepidoptera. Yet 
it is remarkable that throughout his classification, where founded on 
pupal characteristics, as well as in his descriptions of individual pupge 
(with the exception of a vague reference under Hesperidae), there is no 
allusion whatever to the question of free segments, no statement as to 
which incisions still retain power of movement in individual sjnecies, 
no mention of the remarkable limitations of this movement in Pierids 
and Nymphalids, and reference is made to one only of the “ Micro ” 
characters preserved in the Hesperidae, and then without any apparent 
recognition of its significance. At least I have failed, after close study 
of the book, to find more than this, and could hardly have overlooked 
such allusions did they exist. I mention this in order to illustrate the 
defectiveness of descriptions and figures generally. If in a work of 
the highest class, such as Scudder’s undoubtedly is, so little assistance 
is afforded in some important directions, it is obvious that in less 
Read April 17th, 1894. 
