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XIV. On Stenoptilia grandis (ncio species). By T. A. 

 Chapman, M.D., F.Z.S. 



[Read April 1st, 1908.] 



Plates XIV— XVII. 



Certain groups of the Stenoptilias are not too easy to 

 separate correctly into their component species. The gen- 

 tian-feeding section is perhaps one of the most puzzling of 

 these. Probably our S. zopliodadylus is the most distinct. 



But * (jrapliodaetylus and eoproclaetylus seem to me to 

 be extremely difficult to discriminate, so much so, that I 

 am not very clear as to what facts I could rely on in reply 

 to any one who asserted them to be identical. 



In their most pronounced and typical forms they are 

 sufficiently different, but there have passed through my 

 hands specimens that were more or less intermediate, or 

 though apparently belonging to one species, presented 

 characters supposed to be distinctive of the other. 



If there is only one species, then the form that is the 

 subject of this note is another form of it. But if graplw- 

 dcwtylus ('p7ie2imo7ianthes) be distinct from coprodactylus then 

 S. grandis is undoubtedly a third species. 



It is characterised by its large size (exp. al. 30 mm.), and 

 by the transverse pale marking on the upper plume of the 

 fore-wing. In grapliodactylus {pneummianthes), PI. XLV, 

 fig. 6, this line is fairly transverse and not far from the 

 middle of the sej)arate part of the plume. 



In eoprodactylns (PI. XIV, figs. 5 and 7) this line tends 

 to be oblique and to be nearer the apex of the wing than 

 in [jraphodaetylus, but still running back internally, as if to 

 reach the fork between the plumes. On grandis (PI. XIV, 

 fig. 4) this difference is extreme, the oblique line is well 

 beyond the middle of the plume, and is very oblique, 

 almost seeming to run from the apex to the middle of the 

 inner border of tlie plume. 



This line varies a good deal in different specimens of 

 graplhodaetyliis and eoprodactylns^ but in obliquity and 



* I do not pi'oj)ose to discuss the relation of pneumonanthes and 

 yrapliodactyhis. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1908. — PART 11. (SEPT.) 



