260 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



fruit of their labors, for the work would have been a credit to any 

 country, and is therefore the more remarkable for having been 

 written entirely in India. 



Evolution of the Colour Pattern in the Microlepidopterous 



Genus Lithocolletis. By Annette Frances Braun. Journ. 



Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila. (2), XVI, p. 105-168; with 26 text 



figures and pis. Ill and IV with 99 coloured figures. 



In this work Miss Braun, who is well known to readers of the 



Canadian Entomologist for her work on the Tineidae, has made a 



careful study of the numerous species of the genus Lithocolletis, 



with the object of determining the primitive colour pattern of the 



genus and the -principles involved in its evolution among the 



various species. The work is based upon a comparative study of 



the adults of 95 species as well as the development of the pupal 



wings in 11 representative forms. 



The general conclusions arrived at are as follows: The primi- 

 tive pattern of the fore wing consists of a series of seven pale yellow 

 transverse bands separated by unpigmented areas, the arrangement 

 of the bands having a definite relation to the course of the longi- 

 tudinal veins. These primitive bands constitute the ground colour 

 of the wings and tend to become broader during both ontogenetic 

 and phylogenetic development, in some species suffusing the entire 

 wing. Dark markings appear only at the limits between the 

 ground colour and the unpigmented areas, but these markings once 

 firmly established in the species become independent of extension 

 of the ground colour. 



It is suggested that "the uniform yellowish ground colour 

 which suffuses the wing in the higher Lepidoptera. beginning at 

 the base and spreading distalward, is the outcome of a phylogeneti- 

 cally older type of marking, originally banded, and later fused to a 

 uniform colour, and that the markings are a second series super- 

 imposed upon the first." The occurrence in some of the higher 

 Lepidoptera of dark bands in pairs seems to be an indication of 

 their origin on each side. of a primitive band of the ground colour, 

 as in Lithocolletis. 



The work is illustrated by many text-figures and two coloured 

 plates on which the figures of 92 species are grouped in the form of 

 a phylogenetic tree. 



Mailed July l()lh, 1914. 



