[1267] Mr. MacLeay says that more than 100,000 Annulosa exist in collections.—Hor. Ent. 469.
[1268] Vigors in Zoolog. Journ. I. ii. 188.
[1269] Hor. Entomolog. 125—.
[1270] See Bicheno in Linn. Trans. xv. 491.
[1271] Dr. Horsfield, in his very ingenious and generally admirable Descriptive Catalogue of the Javanese Lepidoptera in the Museum of the Honourable East India Company, has divided that Order into five primary groups, apparently to accommodate it to Mr. W. S. MacLeay's quinary system. I trust he will pardon me for observing, that in this arrangement he seems to me rather to force than to follow nature; and that though he adheres to the above system as to the number, he forsakes it in the construction of his groups.
The obvious primary sections of the Lepidoptera, which have been evident to almost every one who has at all studied the Order, are the three named in the text, corresponding with Linné's genera Papilio, Sphinx, and Phalæna. The groups of the last or nocturnal section, which Dr. Horsfield has elevated to the same rank with the two first, are evidently not of equal value, nor to be placed upon the same platform; for the Bombycidæ, Noctuidæ, and Phalænidæ, are clearly of a secondary rank. Indeed this section is resolvable into more groups of equal value than the learned Doctor has assigned to it; for the Tortricidæ, Tineidæ, &c. are not so united to the Geometers, or genuine Phalænidæ, as to form with them a primary group of the Nocturnal Lepidoptera, but are themselves entitled separately to that distinction. This will be evident to every one who will take the trouble to compare the larvæ and their habits, of the two tribes, as well as the perfect insects.
In the construction of his groups, he seems not to have discovered in the Lepidoptera a great typical group resolvable into two, or at least he has not built his system on this foundation, which appears an essential part of the quinary arrangement. (See Mr. W. S. MacLeay in Linn. Trans. xiv. 56—.) As to value, the Papilionidæ constitute the typical group or centre of the Order, though the Phalænidæ prevail as to numbers: but neither of these are resolvable into two primary groups.
[1272] Linn. Trans. xiv. 56—. It is to be observed, however, that what Mr. MacLeay calls the aberrant groups are usually also resolvable into two.
[1273] Hor. Entomolog. 318, et passim.
[1274] Linn. Trans. ubi supr. Mr. W. S. MacLeay informs me that M. Agardh has found that the distribution of Fuci is regulated by the same law.