184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the remains being attached to the pin, apparently, merely by a 

 plentiful growth of verdigris. Of this insect there is left only 

 the head, scape of both antennae and half flagellum of one, dexter 

 half of thorax with two wings and three legs attached and sinister 

 fore leg ; the other type is in better state, wanting only the tips 

 of the antennae.* Marshall describes the first cubital cell as 

 being very distinctly separated from the first discoidal, and when 

 examining the specimens I was surprised to fiind that although 

 this is correct of one example, in the other the dividing nervure 

 is widely interrupted. As I have elsewhere remarked, in my 

 opinion far too much importance has, in the j^ast, been attached 

 to the development of this nervure as a means of classification, 

 and no doubt the well-marked division in one of his types 

 misled Marshall into thinking that the insect should be referred 

 to the genus Earinus. The distinctly trilobed mesothorax and 

 rugose metathorax leave no doubt in my mind that the sjDecies is 

 a Microdiis, and I should certainly ascribe it to M. conspicuus^ 

 Wesm., the only points of difference I can detect (excepting 

 that the insects described by Marshall are perhaps rather 

 lighter than Wesmael leads us to believe) being in the colour of 

 the hind tibise and in the number of joints of the antennae (31 

 according to Wesmael and 32 given by Marshall). Wesmael 

 describes the hind tibiae as black at the tips, but this is not so in 

 Fitche's specimens, all being concolorous. Such a small dif- 

 ference in the tibial coloration is not, however, of primary im- 

 portance. 



In the male the posterior orbits only are reddish and the 

 abdomen black with the second segment testaceous, basal half of 

 the antennae also testaceous, and second abdominal segment with 

 a curved, transverse, impressed line. Length about 4 mm. 

 The female is said to have the abdomen entirely testaceous or 

 rufo-testaceous after the first segment and the orbits more marked 

 with testaceous than in the males ; tibiae as long as the body. 



One of Fitche's insects bears Marshall's yellow label 

 " Earinus zonatus, n. sp.," and both are ticketed as from 

 Eupoecilia notulana. 



* The condition of Fitche's Collection is greatly to be deplored. I understand 

 that durinf:; the last twenty years or so of his life, his time being very fully 

 occupied with local government afiairs, he took little or no interest in entomology 

 and his collection sutfered in consequence. — particularly from the attacks of mites. 

 After his death the greater part of the collection, contained in a cabinet, was 

 purchased, fortunately before it was irretrievably ruined, by the Trustees of the 

 Essex County Museum, and it is good to know that these specimens are now in 

 such good hands. Not until some years later was Mr. B. S. Harwood, by a lucky 

 chance, enabled to save from destruction the remainder of the collection, which 

 was housed in several store-boxes. Mites and mould have, however, worked terrible 

 havoc with the contents of these boxes, great numbers of the specimens having 

 utterly perished. The Fitche Collection is made particularly valuable by containing 

 numbers of Marshall's types. 



