BY E. MEYRICK, B,A. 185 



climate they are a dominant race. No reason can be assigned 

 why the genus should not occur in Australia, except that it must 

 have come into existence since the time when Australia was last 

 in immediate communication by land with the continent, when it 

 obtained its original supply of Mammalia, which is believed to 

 carry us back to somewhere near the close of the Secondary 

 period. Now Gracilaria, which is more highly organised, and 

 would be generally regarded as a development of Lithocolletis, is 

 found evenly distributed over the whole world, as stated above. 

 It appears to me to follow from this that LithocoUetis came into 

 existence much later than Gracilaria ; and that if, as from their 

 close alliance seems almost certain, one was develoj)ed from the 

 other, it was LithocoUetis which is a degraded development of 

 Gracilaria. It would ap^^ear also that the same is true of Ornix; 

 whose cone-rolling larvae should be noticed in connection with the 

 cone-rolling larvee of the higher Gracilarice in Europe and North 

 America, as it is very probable that the habit is of late development. 

 Coriscium, though possessing few species, is apparently contem- 

 poraneous with Gracilaria. The rest of the family consists at 

 present of three small North American genera, of which I am only 

 able to say that they are allied to LithocoUetis. The ancestral 

 form of the family may therefore be regarded as a form 

 corresponding very nearly to the smaller species of Gracilaria. 



Turning now to the BedeUidcB, we find them to be a very small 

 group, yet having distinct affinities with the GracilaridcB, the 

 LyonetidcB, and though Elachista with lhe Elachistidcd. They may 

 probably be the last smwiving representatives of a once wider 

 family. As in their case there is at present but little available 

 material, I will not force conclusions ; but it seems likely that we 

 may have here the nearest existing approach to the original 

 organisms from which the above-mentioned three families took 

 their rise. The commonly swollen basal joint of the antennae 

 points to the source of the eyecap in the Lyonetidcd ; and the 



