Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/148

124 it is of very great extent; but the most cursory glance suffices to show that its contents are far too heterogeneous to accord with the notion we now form of a genus. Without a full series of specimens, or more accurate descriptive details than we now possess, it would be impossible to make a satisfactory revision of the Saturniæ with a view to their distribution into consistent genera. But there are certain characteristic features affording a basis for this distribution to which it may be worth while briefly to advert. The hinder margin of the posterior wings is either regularly rounded, produced into an acute angle, or drawn out into a long narrow tail. As these distinctions are connected with others of an equally important although less obvious kind, they may be adopted for the establishment of three primary groups. Of these the first is by far the most extensive, including the great mass of the species, such as S. atlas, hesperus, cecropia, &c. To S. atlas and its congeners, distinguished by their great size, development of the palpi, large vitreous spaces on the disk of the wings, &c., we would assign the name Hyalophora, a term nearly corresponding to Porte-mirroir of the French and Spiegeldrager of the Dutch. The great majority of the middle-sized and smaller species, in which the vitreous space is supplanted by an ocelliform spot (the British and continental species are examples), might retain the old name Saturnia; but even in the section thus restricted, there is room for further