Items related to The Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation...
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894. Excerpt: ... $T AND #fy JOURNAL Of VARIATION. No. 2. Vol. V. Ferruary 15th, 1894. tftfE ETtQhtfflQji OF tfjfE LEPIDOPtfEOlte Pl/PŁ. A SKETCH. By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.E.S. The earliest insects did not possess a pupa proper. It may be doubted whether the term can be rightfully applied to any stage of some of the Orthoptera, or even of some" Hemiptera and NeuropTera, the transition from larva to imago being gradual, and extending over several moults, and the habits of the insects differing little in the larval condition from what they are in the imaginal. As the imago came to differ in form and habits from the larva, so there appeared to arise a necessity for a quiescent intermediate stage, which became more and more pronounced as the difference became greater, the change probably taking place along several different lines of evolution. As we are concerned only with the Lepidopteua, it is not necessary to allude to the illustrations of this furnished by other orders, nor to refer to the systems of classification which may be and have been founded upon this circumstance, and which agree with and confirm those based on other and wider considerations. It would follow, however, from the broad consideration of all orders of insects, that those which possess the most quiescent pupa? have been the most recently evolved, and in that sense, are the highest. When we come to the Lepidoptera, and, applying this principle, look for the species or family which has the least inactive pupa, we find it in Micropteryx, which has been by common consent, on other grounds, regarded as a very low, if not the lowest, lepidopterous type, and presents strong points of affinity with the Trichoptera. In it the segments of the pupa are distinct, and preserve a certain amount of independent m...
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