1880. j 39 



OCCURRENCE OF THE NEUROPTEROUS GENUS BILAR IN SOUTH 



AMERICA. 



BY R. McLACHLAN, F.R.S., &c. 



I have for some time had in my collection an insect belonging to 

 the singular genus of Neuroptera-Planipennia first made known by 

 Rambur under the term Hilar, taken by the Eev. T. A. Preston in the 

 neighbourhood of Bio Janeiro in November, 1872. As this genus is 

 altogether new for the South American Fauna, its occurrence in that 

 Continent is an interesting fact in Geographical Distribution, and it 

 is well that its representative there should be characterized. 



DlLAR PrESTCXNT, 11. Sp. 

 Body blackish-fuscous, varied with testaceous or yellowish. On the disc of the 

 head, above, are two very large median, sub-contiguous, rounded elevated tubercles, 

 placed somewhat obliquely, and in front of these a single still larger, somewhat 

 conical tubercle ;* on the sides of the disc, toward the eyes, the head is de- 

 pressed and excavated. Antenna? dirty whitish, the short stout basal joint and the 

 second somewhat testaceous : the succeeding joints (up to the 9th, the rest broken 

 off) are slightly longer than broad, each with a dusky ring at its apex ; the third has 

 a short branch, all the others along, stout, straight branch, somewhat dusky, and rather 

 pubescent, gradually increasing in length, so that the branch of the 9th joint is 

 seven or eight times the length of the joint itself, and that of those preceding only 

 slightly shorter. Palpi and legs pale yellowish-white, the latter strongly pubescent. 

 Abdomen very obtuse (the anal parts not capable of definition). "Wings pale 

 whitish-hyaline, slightly iridescent, densely and transversely reticulated or chequered 

 with pale grey markings ; neuration fuscescent, with long blackish hairs : in the 

 anterior-wings the first four or five costal nervules are simple, afterwards a forked 

 nervule and a simple one alternate, and there is a marginal rudiment between each 

 and in each of the forks ; principal sector 6-branched, the branches furcate or bi- 

 furcate, and each branch also ends in a minute marginal fork with the usual inter- 

 mediate marginal rudiments ; two nervules between the sector and the radius, the 

 other transverse nervules very few in number ; a dusky horny point between the 

 first and second branches of the sector : in the posterior-wings the neuration is 

 similar in arrangement ; the sector is 6-branched, but the branches have mostly only 

 the minute marginal fork. 



$ . Length of body, about 2 J mm. Expanse, 10| mm. 

 Remarkable for its very small size as compared with the species 

 of the Old World ; but it appears to be absolutely congeneric, differing 

 only in the lesser number of transverse nervules in the wings. It de- 

 ceptively resembles the species of a group of European Psychidce. 



Lewisham, London : May, 1880. 



* These protuberances were mistaken by Rambur for ocelli, an error duly pointed out by 

 Hagen in the Stett. ent, Zeitung, 1866, p. 292. 



