1902.] 



283 



A NEW INDIAN MICRO-TRICHOPTERON. 

 BY KENNETH J. MORTON, F.E.S. 



Some years ago Mr. McLachlan sent me a (for the family) huge 

 Indian species of Kgclroptilida, but until quite recently other things 

 have prevented ine from making more than a cursory examination of 

 it. My interest in these small Trichoptera having been specially and 

 strongly revived by working through a large consignment of North 

 American forms, I have been led to make a thorough overhaul of the 

 insect in question, and I now submit herewith a description of it. 



In size the species exceeds any previously known member of the 

 family. Notwithstanding this, and also some differences in minor 

 details (particularly the apparent absence of the ventral lamina) from 

 the more typical forms of the genus Ithytrichia, I do not consider it 

 necessary to separate it from that genus in the meantime. In neura- 

 tion, warts of the head, possession of ocelli, spur formula (0, 3, 4), 

 the long slender apical joint of the maxillary palpi, it agrees with 

 that genus, and the appendages are also of a comparatively simple 

 character. 



Ithytrichia violacea, n. sp. 

 Antennae (mutilated) so far as present, very pale yellow, almost white ; clothing 

 of head dark brown, paler in the front part between the antennae, where the hairs 

 become almost dark golden. Palpi whitish. Tarsi pale yellowish-testaceous ; basal 

 joints of last pair tinged with fuscous : legs otherwise fuscous ; tibiae of last pair 

 externally with long dense cilise, middle tibiae also ciliated but not so strongly. 

 Anterior wings very dark brown, probably deep black in life, and somewhat violet 

 tinted, due to the iridescence of the wing-membrane. A very few snow-white 

 upright hairs on the wings do not form any pattern or affect their uniformly dark 

 appearance. Hind-wings almost equally dark, with deep grey fringes. 



The appendages of the male viewed from above consist of (1) two large sub- 

 triangular lobes, which are in reality 

 the angles of the last dorsal segment. 

 (2) From between these lobes proceed 

 two comparatively slender strongly 

 chitinized rods, apparently united at 

 the base, and at the apex very slightly 

 out-turned. (3) Between the rods and 

 inferior to them is a down-turned pro- 

 cess, probably hollowed, on or in which 

 rests, if exserted, the penis : this organ 

 is (so far as exserted) simple and rod- 

 like. (4) The large inferior appendages 

 are united, concave, divergent, with a 

 deep semicircular excision between 

 them, outer margin regularly curved, 

 inner margin oblique in the apical 

 portion ; at the angle where the oblique 

 portion joins the circular portion the 

 membrane is darkened : viewed from 

 the side these appendages are strongly 

 upturned. 



B 



