NOTES ON LUFFIAS. 179 



more probable, the Tineid section seems to be the lowest ; these 

 formed cases that still consisted of an upper and lower valve like that 

 of the Adelids; they tended to get away from ordinary green vegetable 

 food, as we find in the large group of Tineae, that are clothes' moths, 

 and live in dry or rotten nuiterial, dead wood, fungi, kc. The Mccssia 

 {vinci(ldla) group of these, took to a method of life very like that of the 

 lowest Psj'chids, riz., lichens on rocks. Sec, the cases of these have a 

 lower small fiat valve, and an upper one overlapping at the ends, and 

 bulging out laterally and upwards. Such a form as Narycia cannot 

 be very far from this and was probably derived from some similar 

 form. As imagines they now present considerable differences, but 

 both still retain the metallic scaling that so frequently occurs in the 

 lowest families. As case-bearers, the Micro-Psychids have a three- 

 sided case, not difficult perhaps to derive from a two-sided one, like 

 Mecsia vinculella where the upper valve is expanding. In some of them 

 the three sides are in form only, but, in many, it is constructional, in 

 that the case easily splits up into the three sections, and it would 

 seem that the larva so splits it when it enlarges it, adding a strip to 

 each valve separately, just as must be done by il/. vinvidi'Ua to the two 

 valves of which its case consists. Whether Narycia and Diplodoma 

 are entitled to be called Psychids, may be a matter of taste, but it is 

 certain that they mark the Ijeginning of the line of evolution that 

 included all the Psychids and nothing else. 



The branch of Psychids I have called the main line, first included 

 the Solenobias and Taleporias already with apterous females, and 

 with some characters still in common with Tinea. They followed 

 Xarycia in being lichen-feeders, or with a taste for animal debris like 

 Diplodoma. I am myself inclined to confine Talcpmia to Uihidom and 

 its allies, having carnivorous propensities and a long hard case, nearly 

 cylindrical except at its open end, placing Tutt's I>aidii'sia with its 

 lichen-feeding habit and short markedly triangular case with the 

 Solenobiids. These genera are marked by the larvte having trape- 

 zoidal tubercles normally placed, the pupae have two doi-sally placed 

 terminal spines, and the imagines have simple antennte and an areolar 

 cell at the apex of the discoidal ; these are clearly Micro-Psychids. 

 The unquestionable Macro-Psychids have inverse trapezoidal larval 

 tubercles ; the pupfe have the terminal spines ventral, and the 

 imagines have pectinated antennae and no areolar cell. 



The Luffiids (including Ijacotia st>jdtu)i) do not agree with either of 

 these characterisations. They have the areolar cell like micros but 

 pectinated antenuit like macros. They first show the macro character 

 of the inverse trapezoidal tubercles of the larva, the <? pupa is a Micro- 

 Psychid, the female a Macro-Psychid. The larvae are lichen-feeders, 

 like the Micros, but have round cases like the Macros. The cases are 

 carried vertically to the surface on which the larvse walk, and so the 

 larvae, if seen without their cases, carry their abdominal segments in 

 the air, or at least away from the surface they are on. This is a 

 character that affects the young larva? of very many, if not all ]\Iacro- 

 Psychids, l)ut only here is it persistent through the whole larval life. 

 The Macro-Psychid pupa-case of Luffiids is associated with the Macro- 

 Psychid habit of leaving the pupa-case of the ? within the sac on 

 emergence, and the eggs are laid in the pupa-case. Whilst calling, 

 the female does not retani the ovipositor in the pupal shell, but there 



