112 ON THE POTATO-DESTROYING MOTH, 



favorable influences of our equal warm climate. The genus is 

 named after Araujo a Portuguese botanist, and numbers thirteen 

 species which are natives of tropical and subtropical America. In 

 Walp. Ann. v. 501 the species is referred to Yon Martius, genus 

 Schitbertia. 



On a Micro-Lepidopterotts Insect destructive to the Potato. 



By E. Meyrick, B.A. 



My attention was recently called by Mr. Macleay to the 

 ravages of a small moth, belonging to the Tineina, which may 

 under favourable circumstances become an almost fatal pest to 

 potato-growers. Mr. Macleay received lately a large potato 

 completely riddled with living larvaa of this insect, from which 

 subsequently the imagos emerged freely during the earlier part 

 of February, but the larger number of them unfortunately 

 escaped ; on such specimens as were preserved I am enabled to 

 make the following remarks. — There can be little doubt that the 

 species is an imported one, and I have satisfied myself that it is 

 probably identical with Lita Solanella, described by Boisduval, 

 J. B. Soc. Centr. Hort., November, 1874, as being very injurious 

 to potatoes in Algeria ; he refers it to the genus Brijotropha, but 

 it is probably better placed in the closely allied genus Lita. I 

 have not access to Boisduval' s own description, but in the 

 succeeding year M. Pagonot, of Paris, abstracted the essential 

 points of his account, and added some remarks of his own, in the 

 Bull. Soc. Ent. Franc, 5 (v), pp. xxxv. — xxxvii. He states that 

 the eggs are laid on the young shoots of the plant ; that the 

 larvee, as soon as hatched, eat into the root-stock and descend 

 until they reach a tuber ; and that they remain in this, eating 

 galleries completely through its substance, during the remainder 

 of their larval existence. The perfect insect (of which Boisduval 

 bred only a single specimen) is nearly allied to L. epithymella, 



