51 LORD WALSIXGHAM ON [Jail. 19. 



Revision of the West-Indian Micro-Lepidoptera, with 

 Descriptions of new Species. By the Rt. Hon. Lord 

 Walsingham, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 



About two years ago I received a communication from Baron 

 W. von Hedemann asking me to examine and determine a col- 

 lection of Micro-Lepidoptera which he had made in the Danish] 

 West Indies. Although at first very unwilling to undertake thei 

 task, anticipating, not without reason, that there would be a Iarges 

 amount of new material, and that it would involve a very diffi- 

 cult study of the synonymy of described species and of general 

 classification, I felt that such a study must necessarily be very 

 instructive, and that the opportunity should not be lost to enlargo 

 my limited acquaintance with the West-Indian fauna. Moreover!, 

 as the Danish Islands lie to the north of those which supplied 

 the material for my previous paper [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1891 J 

 pp. 492-549 (1892)], they promised to afford some connecting 

 links with the rich fauna of North America, already somewhat! 

 known to me. As to the instruction to be derived, and as to the 

 difficulty of the work undertaken, my calculations were not at 

 fault ; moreover, the rediscovery of Clemens's genus Cydoplasis, 

 with some other decidedly North-American forms, has been of 

 special interest in connexion with the subject of distribution. 

 The amount of material to be dealt with was largely increased bv 

 the reception of a further collection from the same islands made 

 by Mr. F. Gudmann. These, together with the Micros collected 

 by Mr. II. H. Smith in Grenada (from the Godman and Salvin 

 collection), and others received from Dr. Kendall, Mr. T. D. A. 

 Cockerell, Mr. W. Schaus, Mr. F. W. Erich, and the late 

 Monsieur E. Ragonot, form the materials of this paper. It is in 

 fact a second edition of the former one, bringing the West-Indian 

 catalogue of Micro-Lepidoptera up to date, on the lines of the new 

 system of classification put forward by Mr. E. Meyrick in his 

 ' Handbook of British Lepidoptera,' which marks an epoch in the 

 study of these small and often obscure forms. 



When the paper was commenced I was working upon the 

 old lines, with such modifications only as had become obviously 

 necessary as the general study of the subject has advanced ; but 

 the publication of Mr. Meyrick's book supplied a want, and his 

 system seemed to be so near at least to that which I was already 

 working up to by an independent course of study and reasoning, 

 that no effort was required to induce me to accept in the main 

 his sequence of the different families and genera; this has been 

 adopted so far as possible, with the one notable exception of the 

 position and value of the Tortricidce, which cannot, in my opinion, 

 be rightly separated from the Tineina, ai d should take a place 

 P] 



