October, 1901]. 233 



SPANISH MICRO-LEPIDOPTERA. 

 by the right hon. lord walsingham, m.a., ll.d., f.r.s. 



Introduction. 



Any Miero-Lepidopterist taking stock of his collections and 

 desiderata among European species must suffer from a mixture of 

 uncertainty and covetousness when analysing the descriptions of new 

 species published by the late Dr. StauJinger after his two expeditions 

 to Spain in 1857 and 1858. The first and more important of these 

 was confined to the southern portion of the country. Among Tineidce 

 no less than 12 out of 76 descriptions were founded upon single spe- 

 cimens and 8 others on 2 specimens only, while in manj'^ cases the 

 amount of material was very limited. Many of the whole number 

 have since been recognised and are known in a few collections, but 

 the majority of the uniques are still unknown without access to the 

 types. It was in the hope of meeting with some at least of these 

 species that I started in December, 1900, for a six months' holiday in 

 Spain, and devoted as much time as I could afford, among other occu- 

 pations, to collecting. 



A month's visit to Seville before and after Christmas, during 

 which the weather was atrocious, produced very meagre results. No 

 good wild or uncultivated ground could be found within many miles 

 of the town, but at Coria del Kio old thatches were full of hibernated 

 DepressaricB, while Thiodia poEdiscana, Stgr., and LitJiocolletis chicla- 

 nella, Stgr., were feeding in leaves of Populiis alba. 



A visit to Alcalar supplied a few more common species, and 

 Platyedra vilella, 7i., was again a common occupant of thatch. At 

 Jerez the same methods yielded Opostega spatuleUa, HS., with hiber- 

 nated specimens of the LithocoUetis already mentioned, and a small 

 Anyhia (?) seeholdiella, Kag. 



Chiclana, the spot where most of Staudinger's unrecognised 

 species were obtained, was the place at which I was most anxious to 

 stay, but small-pox was prevalent and accommodation primitive ; never- 

 theless, on December 15th, in a heavy downpour of rain, I spent about 

 ten minutes by the road-side during a flying visit, and w^as fortunate 

 enough to find larvae of Hi/psolopJms cisti, Stgr., and cases of a Coleo- 

 2)lwra on Hclichrysum, the same cases obtained later from the same 

 plants produced a species almost undistinguishable from ccelehipen- 

 nella, 7i., but the cases are much narrower and straighter than those 

 of this species from other localities. 



Hearing glowing accounts of the climate, I started for Malaga, 



