Mbyrick.— On Xt'c Zealand Micro-Lepidoptera. 179 



25. Plat, psammochroa, n. sp. 



Male, female. — 16-20 ram. Head, palpi, antennae, thorax, 

 abdomen, and legs wlhtisli-ochreous ; head and thorax some- 

 times with two obscure darker longitudinal stripes ; second joint 

 of palpi sometimes with dark fuscous subapical band ; anterior 

 legs suffused with dark fuscous. Forewings elongate, rather 

 narrow, costa arched, apex acute, hindmargin concave, oblique ; 

 whitish-ochreous ; all veins distinctly lined with ochreous- 

 fuscous ; a few irregularly scattered black dots : cilia whitish- 

 ochreous. Hindwings somewhat broader than forewings, 

 elongate-ovate ; pale whitish-grey ; cilia grey-whitish. 



Differs from all by the concave hindmargin of forewings. 



Otira River, in January ; also from Eastern Australia ; three 

 specimens. 



MICROPTERYGID.E. 



Head rough or loosely haired. Antennas in male filiform, 

 simple or pubescent. Labial palpi moderate or short, straight, 

 porrected or drooping. Maxillary palpi moderate or long, por- 

 rected or folded. Forewings with venation normal or complex, 

 often with additional veins and subdivisions of cell. Hindwings 

 ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, neuration nearly as in forewings, 

 with not less than 9 veins rising out of cell. 



This is the ancestral family of the Tineina, and may be 

 always known by the more complex neuration of the hindwings, 

 which is not essentially differentiated from that of the forewings. 

 In the older genera of the family the neuration cannot be strictly 

 referred to the Lepidopterous type at all, but is really Neurop- 

 terous in character, and undoubtedly indicates the origin of the 

 Lepidoptera from that group. In these genera there are several 

 additional veins, and usually several separate cells, the whole 

 presenting a structure which could not possibly be evolved from 

 the normal Lepidopterous type, since such a process would 

 require the creation of the new veins, whilst the Lepidopterous 

 type can readily be deduced from it by the disappearance or 

 modification of existing veins. In the case of these genera the 

 description of the neuration should require, in consequence, an 

 entirely new terminology ; but, although the course is not 

 strictly logical, I have thought it more intelligible to maintain 

 for the forewings the assumption of the normal Lepidopterous 

 type in these genera, keeping for equivalent veins their usual 

 designation, and treating those which are without analogue in 

 the normal type as superadded. 



Besides the following, only a few European species are 

 authentically known ; I have not succeeded in finding any 

 representative of the family in Australia. The two genera 

 occurring here are both endemic ; Palaomicra is probably the 

 oldest known genus of the order ; Mnesarchaa is very interesting 



