174 IJaimary, 



ON ELACEISTA KILMUNELLA and SOME CLOSELY ALLIED SPECIES. 

 BY H. T. STAINTOX, F.R.S. 



I first indicated an Elachista under tbe name o£ Kilmunrll a in 

 1849 in my " Catalogue of Britisli Tineidse and Pterophoridse." I 

 purposely use the word indicated, for the few lines there printed can- 

 not be called a description. I quote them verbatim : 



" Exp. 4i lines. Anterior wings grey, tlie first fascia angiilated towards the 

 " hinder margin : head grey. 



" This is the stibhistrigella of many cabinets. 



" I took this in a boggy place on the top of the hill at Kilmun in June." 



In 1S54 appeared my volume of the " Insecta Britannica : Lepi- 

 doptera Tineiua," and this contains (p. 253) the first actual description 

 of the insect indicated above. 



For convenience of reference, I again quote the diagnosis and 

 descrii)tion : 



" KihmmeUa, Sta. Cat., p. 25 (1849). Alis anticis saturate obscure griseis, 

 "fascia recta alha ante medium, maculis ante apicem diialus in fasciam sape con- 

 " nexis albis ( $ basi tota alba, sub costa tantum cinerea) ; capite, cum palpis, 

 " saturate griseo. Exp. al. 4| — 5 lin. 



" Head, face, and palpi dark grey. Antennse dark grey. Anterior wings dingy 

 " dark grey, with a nearly straight tcJiite fascia in the middle, and two nearly oppo- 

 " site white spots hefore the apex, frequently united into a fascia ; cilia grey, at the 

 " apex whitish. (In the female the entire base of the wing is white, with the ex- 

 " caption of a grey streak along the costa.) Posterior wings grey, with paler cilia. 



" Common on bogs and mosses in June and July ; on the summit of the hill 

 " above Kilmun it is extremely plentiful, flying freely in the afternoon, threading its 

 " way between the stems of grass or rushes, and occasionally settling for an instant." 



The above description was written after studying the long 

 series of specimens which I collected at Kilmun when stopping 

 there, for ten days in July, 1850, as is duly recorded in the second 

 edition of the "Entomologist's Companion." At that time the insect 

 had not been bred, and it will be observed, that the first fascia is spoken 

 of as nearly straight, and not a word said about its being obsolete to- 

 wards the costa, and the two sj^ots beyond the middle are said to be 

 frequently united into a fascia. 



These characters, to which I am now calling attention, are the 

 very points which serve to distinguish Kilmunella from some of the 

 species most closely Rallied. 



After that portion of the "Insecta Britannica" volume was printed, 

 I bred, at the end of July, 1854, several specimens of an Elachista 

 from larva*, found by Mr. John Scott at Fochabers mining the leaves 



