ANNETTE F. BRAUN 
157 
specimens, the so-called “collar.” This collar may be concol- 
oroiis with the eye-caps, thus contrasting with the thorax, or it 
may be concolorons with the thorax or tuft, in which case it is 
inconspicuous. The antennae are comparatively short, usually 
not exceeding two-thirds of the wing length, rather thick with 
the basal segment dilated and concave beneath to form an eye- 
cap, which is usually clothed with white or whitish scales. The 
tongue is very short, curled, the two halves rather easily separated, 
and less than half the length of the six-jointed and folded maxil- 
lary palpus. The labial palpi are well-developed, porrected in 
life, usually drooping in the dead insect. 
The two pair of wings are in general similar in shape, elongate 
ovate, pointed. In the male the humeral area of the hind wing 
is usuallj' considerably expanded (Fig. 2), resulting in a broaden- 
ing of the basal half of the wing; often the costa is excised beyond 
the middle. 
The most striking peculiarity of the venation of the fore wings 
is the tendency for the base of media to coalesce with radius or 
with the base of cubitus, in contrast to the course taken in the 
majority of the Lepidoptera, where its disappearance takes place 
through atrophy. The supposed “cross vein” which, when 
present, closes cell R, is a portion of media, and its presence 
indicates the coalescence of the basal part of media with cubitus. 
This difference in the course taken by the medial trachea is not 
of taxonomic significance, since in Nepticula we find the respec- 
tive conditions present in two otherwise closely related species, 
and sometimes in individuals of the same species, e.g. in .Y. 
nyssaefoliella (Figs. 1 and 2). As an extreme case of coalescence, 
exhibited in Scoliaulo, we find but a single main vein traversing 
the middle of the wing, from which all veins, except the anal 
veins, seem to arise. The extraordinary development of the 
second anal vein, which forms a projecting ridge on the underside 
of the fore wing, more striking in the female, is apparently corre- 
lated with its function of serving as a fastening for the row of 
spines along the costal margin on the upper side of the hind wing 
of the female, which here preserve their primitive function of 
locking the two wings together (Figs. 1, 3 and 5). The true 
frenulum in the female consists merely of a group of minute func- 
TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC., XLIII. 
