4 U.S. NATIONAL AIUSEUM BULLETIN 257 



and trying to establish distribution of certain taxa throughout tropical 

 Asia, one is continually confronted with this lack of data from the 

 Philippine region. This, in tiu-n, appeared to be in agreement \vith 

 paucity of material of Philippine Microlepidoptera in European 

 museums. It is most unfortunate that all natural history collections 

 in Manila were destroyed during World War II. 



These circumstances led the author to a systematic search for 

 PhiUppine material in museums. In 1954, a trip to several museums 

 in the eastern United States was made, and it was in the U.S. National 

 Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., that the 

 first extensive collection of the Microlepidoptera of the Philippines 

 was superficially investigated. This collection formed a part of the 

 rich material brought together by the weU-known collector of Philip- 

 pine insects, Charles Fidler Baker, who w^as Dean of the College of 

 Agriculture at the University of the Philippines. Only a portion of 

 this material had been sent to Edward Meyrick for identification some 

 forty years ago. Since that time, however, the revolutionary intro- 

 duction of the use of genital characters for the taxonomy of Micro- 

 lepidoptera has been made, requiring a revision of previous work. 



The presence of this important collection in the Smithsonian 

 Museum and my 1954 visit formed the incentive for a study project 

 that was made by Dr. J.F. Gates Clarke, then Chairman, Department 

 of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution, as senior investigator, and 

 the author, as junior investigator. This project, accepted by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and made possible by a grant of the National 

 Science Foundation, came into effect in 1961 and residted in the 

 present sm-vey. 



The author stayed at the Smithsonian U.S. National Museum 

 (USNM) in 1961-1962 as a research associate for the piu'pose of a 

 preliminary study of the collection. Dissections of genitalia were 

 made and descriptions or redescriptions of genera and species were 

 construed. This investigation was continued at the Leiden Museum 

 (LM) from 1962 through 1964, where study of the literature was 

 resinned, Snellen's and Meyrick's types were compared with the 

 material, and dramngs of genitalia and photographs of the wings 

 were made. The project also included two visits to the British 

 Museum (Natural History) of London, in 1963 and 1964, for study 

 and comparison of Walker's, Walsingham's, and Meyrick's types. 



The present survey of microlepidopterous fauna of the Philippines 

 forms but a general outline, as it is based upon too-scanty material. 

 In total 138 genera, 291 species, 5 subspecies and 1 forma are recorded, 

 of which 19 genera, 146 species, 5 subspecies, and 1 forma are described 

 as new. 



