121 [November. 



MEYEICK'S AUSTEALIAN TOETEICIDS. 

 BY PKOFESSOE C. H. FERNALD. 



Mr. E. Meyrick has recently published several papers on the 

 Micro-Lepidoptera o£ Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, in the 

 Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, vol. vi, and 

 in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute for 1882. 



Before publishing, the author went to England and made a critical 

 study of the types of Walker in the British Museum, which was 

 necessary, if the names of that author were to be respected. He 

 speaks of the work of Walker in much the same strain as every one 

 else who has had occasion to review any of his work, and he is also 

 quite severe in his strictures on the work of Mr. Butler. 



Mr. Meyrick had the great kindness to send me a series of his 

 types of the Tortricids, representing most of the genera and a con- 

 siderable number of the species, else I could not have undertaken a 

 review of this point of his work. 



So far as I can judge, he has adopted the Tortricid group as re- 

 stricted by Lederer and Heinemann, but regards it of higher than 

 family rank, and divides it into three families. My own studies have 

 led me to regard it of family rank only, and what he has given as 

 families I have considered sub-fiimilies. (See my Catalogue of the 

 N. A. TortricidcB, Trans. Am. Ent. Soc, vol. x.) Perhaps he is right, 

 but entomologists are not as yet agreed on the rank of certain groups 

 of the Lepidoptera. Lord Walsingham, in " Papilio," vol. ii, p. 77, 

 discusses the value of the group Tineina, and expresses the firm belief 

 than it is only of family rank, and that we should use the term 

 Tineidce for it. Surely, the Tortricids cannot form a group of higher 

 rank than these, if as high. 



Mr. Meyrick found it necessary to create twenty new genera in 

 his family Tortricidce ; twelve in his GrapliolithidcB ; and six in his 

 ConchylidcB. Later, he suppressed his genus Cryptotila, which was 

 founded on characters existing in the female only. I should not be 

 surprised if he found good reason, upon the study of further material, 

 to re-establish this genus for the species which he placed under it. 



I was at first entirely unwilling to believe that so many new 

 genera could exist in nature, in the territoiy mentioned, but when I 

 had given the insects a critical examination, I became convinced that 

 we have to deal with a Tortricidian fauna, as distinct and diverse from 

 other parts of the world as is the mammalian fauna of that country. 



I certainly agree with the author in regard to most of the genera, 



