292 Mr. H. T. Stainton's Synopsis 



XXII. Sj/nopsis of the Genus Elachista. St/ H. T. 

 Stainton, Esq. 



[Read 4th January, 1858.] 



The genus of Alicro-Lepidoptera, to which the name Elachista is 

 now restricted, is as natural an assemblage of species as we could 

 wish. 



The discordant elements have gradually been removed from it, 

 and in form, structure and habit the remaining insects are almost 

 perfectly homogeneous. 



When we reflect on the habits of these insects and the multitudes 

 in which they generally occur, we are irresistibly reminded of the 

 poetic phrase — 



"The myriads of the peopled grass." 



These insects truly peoph; the grass, not merely by residing in its 

 neighbourhood, but in the larva state by taking up their abodes 

 within the blades and stems of grass — the few which are not 

 actual ^rfl.?s-miners, feeding in the allied plants Carex, Scirpus, 

 and Luzula. 



The perfect insects are frequently found in swarms, quite after 

 the style of gnats, and love to disport themselves over the tufts of 

 grass in woods and along hedge banks on sunny afternoons during 

 the summer season. 



The student is soon perplexed by the number and similarity of 

 the species, and hitherto descriptions of the species have been so 

 scattered that one needed to collect a small library in order to have 

 them all at hand. 



With the view of supplying what has been much wanted, I have 

 attempted to describe briefly, yet characteristically, all the species 

 of the genus I could collect together — the number of these species 

 (all of which are European) is seventy-two. Many of these 

 species, it may happen, will hereafter be found to be constituted 

 only on aberrant specimens, but the contrary process is the more 



