92 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



very different from that of the hitherto supposed allies and the 

 genus Ethmia has no near relationship with Dcpressaria, which 

 has been regarded as a derivative from it. 



The genera Asinis Walker, Tamarrha Walker, and some 

 other exotic genera belonging to this family differ from Ethmia 

 only in secondary sexual characters of the males and must be 

 included in that genus. 



ELACHISTIM;, Authors. 



The supposed family Elachistidae as denned in Meyrick's 

 Handbook of British Lepidoptera and in Dyar's List of North 

 American Lepidoptera is found to comprise several groups, 

 which have really no close relationship, and a complete rear- 

 rangement must be made. 



The genus Cycnodia Herrich-Schaeffer,* of which Mendcsia 

 Joannisf and Tribal on cnra Walsingham| are in the writer's 

 judgment synonyms reveals a highly developed type with 

 nine veins in the hind wing, one more than is normally 

 found. After vain efforts to explain the additional vein, 

 termed by Abbe Joannis "7 bis" in some other way (as an 

 acquired modern character, a secondary sexual splitting of 

 vein 7 ) , I am at last forced to accept it as a persisting primitive 

 character, as my friend, Mr. J. Hartley Durrant, first suggested 

 to me last summer. 



Genera with this additional vein cannot have been derived 

 from any modern genera with only 8 veins, but must be remains 

 of a quite separate branch from early micropterygid ancestors, 

 and such genera must hence logically be regarded as a separate 

 superfamily, parallel with and systematically of equal value to 

 all of the other modern microlepidoptera. 



The name CYCNODIOIDHA may appropriately be utilized for 

 this group, which may be of larger extent than at present real- 

 ized, because the higher forms have attained very much the 

 same characters and general habitus as the higher 

 the same characters and general habitus as the higheiTINEOIDKA. 

 The genera Elachista of authors (Aphclosetia Stephens, Wal- 

 singham) ; Stcphcnsia Stainton ; Pcrittio Stainton ; Scirptopda 

 Wocke ; Pol\mctis Walsingham. and Aphiyalia Dyar are direct 

 derivations from Cycnodia and must consequently be included 

 in this superfamily, though they have lost or at least partly 

 lost the vein "7 bis" ; some of these genera appear to be syn- 



*Syst. Bearb. Schmett. Europe, v. p. 211, pi. xin, fig. 13, 1885. 

 fBull. Soc. Ent. France, LXXI, p. 230, 1902. 

 JEnt. Mo. Mag., xix, p. 54, 1908. 



