INTRODUCTION. XV 

the two last of which nearly all our Tryphonini, Cteniscini and Mesolep- 
tini were grouped. This chaotic mass was reduced to remarkable order 
under Holmgren’s masterly hand in 1855; the whole was treated under 
the four heads we still retain: Metopiides=his Tryphonides aspidopi, 
Exochides=his Tryphonides prosopi, Bassides=his Tryphonides schizo- 
donti, and the Tryphonides=his Tryphonides homalopi. I became 
familiarised with his system so long before assimilating the somewhat 
scattered one of Prof. Thomson that in the present work I have, perhaps 
to too great an extent, followed his nomenclature, admitting additional 
genera only when their facies are perfectly distinct, and introducing 
Ashmead’s section of the last Tribe, erected on the ungual pectination. 
Great as the progress undoubtedly has been during the last thirty years 
towards a natural grouping of this subfamily, much yet remains to be 
accomplished and, after protracted research, I am still, in presenting this 
volume, left in considerable doubt respecting the nearer affinities of the 
Orthocentrini or Ctenopelmini with the Ophionid Plectiscides: in attri- 
buting it to the latter, I must own to the consideration of convenience. 
Orthocentrus is undoubtedly related to Promethus and Zootrephus in the 
conformation of both areolet and basal segment, the Bassides are allied 
in their mandibular structure only with Metopius and in general facies 
cannot be superficially distinguished from Mesoleius. To have placed 
Orthocentrus last in the present volume would have necessitated the 
total revision of its order. Beginning with the Tryphonides, we should 
have been led by three equal affinities (the resemblance of Mesoleius, 
mandibular structure of Metopius and similarity of the smaller Polyblasti) 
to the Bassides, while the Plectiscoid Ctenopelmini would altogether 
have fallen out of line; thence the convex face and glabrous petiole of 
Exochus would have barred natural continuation to the Orthocentrini, 
which, indeed, might with but little impropriety be placed in the Plectis- 
cides proper rather than in the Exochides, especially since the evidence 
of its economy, as far as it is at present known, relates much more 
distinctly to the Diptera than to the Tortricid Lepidoptera. 
Nothing has appeared upon this subfamily in our language but the 
descriptions of a few additional and new species by Bridgman and Parfitt, 
since Stephens translated those of older authors and brought forward 
some of his own, in all a hundred and fifty kinds, more or less unreliably 
recorded, in 1835. Desvignes’ Catalogue of 1856 only raises the total by 
eight, and many of these are synonyms; next followed the same author's 
new Bassi in 1862, nearly all antedated by Holmgren’s work. Marshall's 
first list showed two hundred and twenty-six, excluding many unplaced 
kinds of Mesoleptus and Tryphon in 1870; and his more pretentious 
Catalogue extended our total to three hundred and one, two years later. 
Then came Bridgman’s annual additions, which, with those from other 
sources, totalled a hundred and thirty-three, showing the entangled mass 
