Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/86

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EXOTIC MOTHS.




It is still a matter of dispute whether the Uraniidæ, the splendid tribe of Lepidoptera with which we terminated our account of Foreign Butterflies, really appertains to the true butterflies, or should be included among the crepuscular kinds. The structure of the antennæ, organs of the highest importance in the arrangement of this order, seem to indicate the latter as their true position; and this is further corroborated by the metamorphoses, with which we have but recently become acquainted. In ignorance of these, and influenced by the brilliant colours of the typical species, and their general appearance, Latreille arranged them with butterflies after Hesperia, and has been followed by most subsequent writers. In commencing the Heterocerous section, as has been done by the author just named, with Agarista, a very close connexion, therefore, subsisted between the two great divisions, so close, indeed, that it would be no easy matter to define