THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 345 



ON DR. WiM. DIETZ'S REVISION OF THE TINEID^ 



(HEINEMANN). 



BY AUGUST BUSCK, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



The long-expected paper by Dr. Wm Dietz, entitled : "Revision of 

 the Tineid Subfamilies, Amydriince and Ti7iei7ice^ inhabiting North 

 America,"^ appeared during the writer's absence in Europe, and a subse- 

 quent summer's expedition to the West Indies made it impossible to give 

 this important contribution to the knowledge of our American Tineidi\i the 

 attention it deserved before early this year. Since then I have gone 

 carefully over all Dr. Dietz's material with him in his hospitable home in 

 Hazelton, Pa., and have had another fruitful sojourn with him in my own 

 home, which has resulted in complete agreement between us on nearly 

 every point of difference in opinion which had arisen during my studies of 

 his paper. Thus I am very gratified that the following corrections of that 

 paper (with a few minor exceptions specially noted) are all seconded by 

 Dr. Deitz, who has shown during our sometimes quite animated discussion 

 a rare scientific spirit in the effort to get at the true facts, regardless of his 

 expressed opinions, which cannot be too highly commended ; in fact, Dr 

 Dietz might as well have published the following notes himself, but has 

 preferred that I should do it. 



Dr. Dietz deserves very much credit for his painstaking work, which 

 is one of the largest and most important single •contributions ever 

 ])ublished on our American Microlepidoptera, and which deals with one of 

 the most difficult groups. 



When in the following remarks I mainly give attention to the mistakes 

 in the paper, it is not for lack of appreciation of the good work done or of 

 the many difticulties conquered ; but the mistakes should, of course, be 

 corrected ; these arise mainly from the lack of sufficient material, and are 

 quite excusable, considering Dr. Dietz's disadvantages in working away 

 fiom the type collections, and without an adequate library. 



One very serious drawback to the paper, which Dr. Dietz cannot be 

 held responsible for, is the fearful amount of typographical errors, worse 

 than in any scientific paper I have met with, which cause much annoyance 

 in study, and result in several unintentional additions to the synonymy. 



Dr. Dietz's paper covers a group of moths, which may be shortly 

 defined by our popular name for the paper, "Tinea and allies," and which 

 is equivalent to Heinemann's old family Tuieidre : but the limits are rather 



I. Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. Phil., XXXI, pp. 1-95, 1905. 



October, 1906. 



