Metrick. — -Revision of New Zealand Tineina. 205 



Art. XXVII. — Revision of New Zealand Tineina. 

 By E. Meyrick, B.A., F.R.S. 



Communicated by Dr. Charles Chilton. 

 [Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. '2nd December, lfljj.] 



In pursuance of the series of papers revising the classification of groups 

 of the T^epidoptera, I now deal with the Tineina. This is in New Zealand, 

 as elsewhere, the largest group, the most interesting for study, and also, 

 on account of the relatively small size of the species, the least studied ; 

 doubtless, therefore, there still remain a large number of additional species 

 to be discovered. Expert search by entomologists possessed of good eye- 

 sight and acumen, together with careful breeding of larvae, is needed to 

 fill up the list ; and special exploration should be made of mountain regions 

 at other times than midsummer ; under such circumstances few species 

 would be found, but it is not improbable that they might be of a specially 

 interesting character. 



The Tineina usually constitute more than a third of the whole 

 Lepidoptera of any given region, and this proportion is apparently main- 

 tained in New Zealand. Of the 327 species of the group, 119 belong to the 

 Oecophoridae, or 36 per cent. ; only in Australia does a similar proportion 

 prevail, the usual ratio being about 9 per cent. It is curious that in the 

 Hawaiian Islands, which have some faunal analogy with New Zealand 

 (e.g., the great preponderance of the genus Scoparia in both), the 

 Oecophoridae are entirely absent. It is remarkable also that whilst New 

 Zealand agrees with Australia in the numerical prevalence of the 

 Oecophoridae, there is little near relationship between the representatives of 

 the two regions, the chief Australian genera (such as Philobota and Eulechria) 

 being only represented"in New Zealand by one or two casual stragglers ; the 

 only genus well established in both regions, Borkhausenia, is cosmopolitan. 



Other marked features are the scanty representation of the usually 

 preponderating family Gelechiadae, the considerable development of the 

 Glyphipterygidae (especially Ghjphipteryx itself), and the absence of the 

 Adelidae, which is an ancient family and present in all other continental 

 regions (for I consider New Zealand as a continent, or rather the remains 

 of one). These features are difficult to explain on any theory, and at 

 present too little is known of the Tineina of the southern parts of South 

 America to estimate accurately the amount of relationship with that region. 

 Certain Glyphipterygid genera (Heliostibes, and allies) are undoubtedly of 

 South American origin ; so also is the Gelechiad genus Anisoplaca. The 

 genera of Heliodinidae are all evidently connected with Queensland ; the 

 Cosmoptenjgidae, Gracilariadae, and Lyonetiadae seem also all to have come 

 from the same region. 



On a general consideration of the facts it seems that the native fauna 

 is composed of three elements introduced at different periods of time — 

 viz. (1) a South American element, which is the oldest, yet of a geological 

 age not very remote, perhaps the Eocene, previous to which the region 

 was entirely devoid of insects or flowering-plants ; to this belong all the 

 larger genera, Borkhausenia, Gyinnobathra, Trachypepla, Izatha, Simaethis, 

 Glyphipteryx (in part), and the Micropterygidae (which for convenience I 



