KEW BRITISH TINEINA. 169 



much other good service to the cause of Entomology. His 

 " Hints on Collecting," published in the Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine, being the most complete and detailed 

 hints yet issued. 



Gelechia Knaggsiella is so extremely close to Gelechia 

 Hilbneriy and coming as it does in a group already gorged, 

 as I may say, with species all of which feed on the Caryophyl- 

 lacece, it must force us to turn our attention more and more 

 to the question, — the question I may call it, — 



What is a species ? 



Had Knaggsiella fed on some other plant, how easy would 

 it have been for the inexperienced to say, that is the reason 

 why it differs from Hilbneri ; but inexperience and experience 

 are alike at a loss to explain this mystery, unless some one 

 could be found bold enough to suggest that its ancestors 

 generations ago, in default of Stellar'ia Holostea, ate some- 

 thing else, and their posterity had been dwarfed ever since — 

 those descended from the specimens which remained con- 

 stant to Stellaria Molosiea always continuing Muhneri. 

 The Pomifoliella group of Lithocolletis has long seemed an 

 unintelligible labyrinth, and since the occurrence of such 

 species as Cgcloniella, Ce/asicolella, Muhalebella, Sind Padi, 

 we have half shrunk from grappling with them. 



Gelechia Umbrosella, Zeller, Isis, 1839. 



Gelechia affinis, Stainton, Ins. Brit. Lep. Tin. p. 115 

 (excluding habit of larva). 



(Non Douglas, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. vol. i. n. s. p. 17). 



This has hitherto been mixed in most of our collections 

 with another species, under the name of Affinis. The true 

 Affinis, the insect described by Douglas (for it is impossible 



