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Show 4 ME. E. Y. WATSON ON THE HESPEEIID^. [Jail. 17, already established; so that it will be fouud that there are many species noted below for which new genera have not been erected, but which have been placed in that genus to which they seem most closely allied. In addition to the collection of the British Museum, free access has been afforded me to the valuable collection of Messrs. Godman and Salvin, to w h o m my best thanks are due for their courtesy and kind assistance. The system of numbering the veins has been adopted in the descriptions for brevity and clearness, and, as this system is not in universal use, the veins in the first figure of neuration have been numbered to exemplify the method. Before 1874 no serious attempt had been made to arrange the genera of the Hesperiidse in natural groups, but since that time several arrangements, though in most cases only relating to a limited fauna, have been proposed. The only suggested arrangement which seems to be perfectly natural is that proposed by Scudder in the Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Science 1, and afterwards worked out more completely in his 'Butterflies of N e w England.' Though it is only for the Hesperiidse of N e w England that this arrangement is fully worked out, yet, on examination, it has been found, with certain modifications, applicable to the Hesperiid genera of the world, and has accordingly been adopted in this paper. In this arrangement Scudder divides the genera of N e w England Hesperiidse into two groups, which he names respectively ILesperidi and Pamphilidi. These two divisions are based to a very large extent on the secondary sexual characters of the male imago, the egg, larva, and pupa supplying subsidiary characters; these latter, however, are, as pointed out, of a slight and ill-defined character, and would be inapplicable generally, since, in the great majority of the genera, little or nothing is known of the earlier stages. The male characters are, however, sufficient in themselves to enable the majority of the genera to be readily assigned to the respective groups, and where no secondary male characters exist the neuration or habits supply the necessary indication. Mabille has further amplified this arrangement of Scudder's in a paper2 on the Hesperiidse in the Brussels Museum, wherein he further subdivides the main divisions and assigns additional genera to their respective groups. These further subdivisions have unfortunately been only very partially characterized, owing, as M . Mabille himself states, to his investigations not being completed. In the allocation of many genera I have found it necessary to entirely differ from M . Mabille's conclusions; for instance, nearly all those genera which Mabille includes under his subdivisions "Ismenini" and " Tayiadini," and assigns to the Astyci= Pamphilidi (Scudder), should, in m y opinion, be transferred to the Resperidi (Scudder), with which their habits and neuration better agree, and Mabille's " tribe " Pyrrhopygini be erected into a group of equal 1 Bull. Buff. Soc. Nat. Sc. vol. i. pp. 195-196 (1874). ' Ann. goo. Ent. Beige, vol. xxi. p. 12 et seq. (1878). |
