Descriptions of South African Micro-Lepidoptera. 17 



ADELIDAE. 



GEN. CEEOMITIA Zell. 



CEROMITIA MITRATA, n. sp. 



<- $ . 22-23 mm. Head whitish, with a band of fuscous suffusion 

 between antennae. Palpi grey-whitish, labial moderate, slender, hairy 

 towards base, maxillary slightly shorter. Antennae greyish. Thorax 

 grey-whitish, shoulders with a grey spot mixed with black. Abdomen 

 grey-whitish. Forewings elongate, rather narrow, costa gently arched, 

 apex obtuse, termeu rounded, rather strongly oblique ; veins all separate ; 

 light ochreous-grey, suffusedly mixed with whitish, and strewn with 

 small scattered dark grey or blackish strigulae ; extreme base of costa 

 black ; a small black longitudinal mark beneath costa near base ; rather 

 large black dots in disc before \ and at end of cell : cilia whitish, some- 

 times tinged with greyish-ochreous towards base. Hindwings with 

 5 and 6 connate ; light grey, with purple reflections ; cilia grey- 

 whitish. 



CAPE COLONY, Capetown, in September and December (Lightfoot) ; 

 two specimens. Most like elongatfl/n, but without the two distinct 

 dark spots on costa posteriorly of that species. 



PROTOTHEORIDAE. 



This new family is constituted for the following remarkable genus ; 

 it is a third family of Micropttr ygina, intermediate between the Hepia- 

 !i<lne and the Micropterygidae, and distinct from both. In 1895 I 

 wrote of the family Hepialidae : " It stands more conspicuously isolated 

 than any other group of L^>ii.l<>^ti -ra, for although it is without doubt a 

 terminal development from the Micropterygidae, the gap between them 

 is considerable ; exotic genera, whilst differing in various details, are 

 remarkably uniform in the more important peculiarities of structure, 

 and do not at all tend to bridge the gap " (' Handbook of British 

 Lepidoptera,' p. 798). This has remained true up to the present, so 

 far as I am aware. The insect here described, however, does in my 

 judgment stand almost exactly midway in the gap, inclining in some 

 respects to one family and in some to the other, and showing, more- 

 over, some leaning towards the early African forms of true Tineidae, 

 which not improbably marks a real genetic connection ; it is therefore 



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