46 . NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XXVI. 1919. 



A CLASSIFICATION OF THE AEGERIADAE OF THE ORIENTAL 

 AND ETHIOPIAN REGIONS. 



By sir GEORGE F. HAMPSON, Bart., F.Z.S., Etc. 



THE follomng classification of the Aegeriadae is intended to be supplementary 

 to M. Le Cerf' s excellent paper in Oberthiir's Etudes de Lepidopterologie 

 ConiparSe, xiv. pp. 127-388 (1917), and the extremely beautiful plates illustrating 

 it published by M. Ch. Oberthiir in his Fascicules, xii. and xiv. This paper is 

 unfortunately left very incomplete, owing to M. Le Cerf having been called up 

 for military service ; and as, besides the collection of the British Museum, I have 

 had the types at the Oxford Museum, Lord Rothschild's collection, and also 

 those in Mr. J. J. Joicey's and Mr. E. Meyrick's collection Idndly placed at inv 

 disposal for study, I have had a rather exceptional opportunity afforded me for 

 bringing the study up-to-date as far as the Oriental and Ethiopian regions are 

 concerned. The studj^ of the whole subject so as to include the faunas of the 

 Palaearctic, Nearctic, and Neotropical regions would have taken more time than 

 I had my disposal, but I have included all the sufficientlj- described genera in my 

 key, and given a list of those from outside the regions dealt with, mth the names 

 of the type species. I am also indebted to Mr. A. J. T. Janse of Pretoria and 

 Mr. H. Dollman of N. Rhodesia for the gift to the British Museum of tlie types 

 of some new species described in this paper, and have also availed myself of the 

 beautiful series of specimens bred by Mr. F. P. Dodd in Queensland in Lord 

 Walsingham's collection. 



A t signifies that I have examined the type of the species, and an * that the 

 species is not in the British Museum. 



fam. aegeriadae. 



Proboscis fully developed or aborted and not functional ; palpi upturned, 

 usually more or less obUquely, and reaching to about vertex of head, often fringed 

 with long hair in front tow'ards base, almost always acuminate at tip and very 

 rarely with some spinous hair at the extremity of the joints {Echidgnathia), in 

 Grypopalpia with tuft of long hair from 2nd joint in front ; frons smooth, very 

 rarely with conical prominence (Rodolphia) ; eyes more or less elUptical and often 

 rather small, not hairy ; antennae pectinate with paired or uniseriatc branches, 

 serrate and fasciculate, fasciculate, or ciUated, the cilia often very long, or often 

 almost simple, the shaft in all the genera of the typical group dilated towards 

 extremity and ending in a small tuft of hair, but in the much smaller Bembecia 

 group tapering to extremity and not ending in a tuft of hair ; thorax usually 

 smoothly scaled ; legs with the mid and hind tibiae often tufted or fringed with 

 long hair and scales ; this reaches its cUmax in Melittia, where the tufts on the 

 tibiae and tarsi are very largely developed and the hind legs are used for paddUng 

 in the air when hovering before a flower, in Synanthedon, etc., the hind tarsi 

 have the first joint only tufted with scales, and in others the tibiae only are 

 fringed with hair or scales, whilst in Conopia, etc., there are slight tufts of spurious 

 hair at the spurs and at the tarsal joints, in Alonina the mid tibiae are spined, in 



