Bibliographical Notices. 427 



is divided into five chapters, of which the first two deal with 

 metamorphosis in Lepidoptera, and the others with the external 

 morphology, internal structure, and phylogeny of the Lepidopterous 

 pupa. The second part includes the Psychides (divided into 

 Micropsychina and Macropsychina), a catalogue of the Palaearctic 

 Psychides, the first portion of the Lachneides, and Index. The 

 author has not only epitomized a large part of the extensive 

 literature relating to the various subjects of which he treats, but 

 has added a very large amount of entirely new and original matter, 

 derived from the observations of himself and his correspondents. 



No less than 334 pages of the second volume are devoted to the 

 interesting, but extremely difficult, group of the Psychides, which is 

 one of the most remarkable among the Lepidoptera. The females 

 are almost always apterous, and in some species are almost destitute 

 of legs and antennae as well, being thus reduced to the condition of 

 mere helpless egg-bags. The larvae form cases for themselves on 

 the plants on which they feed, somewhat resembling those formed 

 by the larvae of caddis-flies (Trichoptera), to which some entomo- 

 logists have considered the Psychidae to be allied. Here the pupa 

 is formed, and the more helpless females never quit it, but deposit 

 their eggs within it. Another peculiarity is that parthenogenesis 

 is so common in some of the species, especially in the genus Solenobia, 

 that you may go on breeding from the larva-like female for genera- 

 tion after generation without ever seeing a male, which greatly 

 adds to the difficulty of satisfactorily separating and defining the 

 species. 



Mr. Tutt has thoroughly reviewed this difficult group. His 

 Catalogue of the Palaearctic Psychides includes no less than 11 

 families, 20 subfamilies, 36 genera (of which 8 are new), and 143 

 species, besides varieties, &c. Among the Psychidae, Mr. Tutt places 

 several genera which many previous authors have included in the 

 Tineides, such as Diplodoma, Lypusa, Melasma, Solenobia , Talcpporia, 

 &c. But if we exclude these, we find that the Psychides proper, 

 which a few years ago used to form a single family, of three genera 

 at most, and which were often included in one, has now expanded 

 to four families, comprising twelve sections, and twenty-seven 

 genera ! This will appear to old-fashioned entomologists a terrible 

 and unnecessary amount of subdivision, but in most similar cases 

 the foresight of the innovator is, sooner or later, largely justified 

 by the judgment of his successors. 



The natural history of each species is also worked out as 

 exhaustively as before ; thus the account of Pachythelia villosella, 

 Ochs., occupies more than eighteen closely printed pages. 



The reprint of the original description of each genus and species, 

 whether short or long, is a great assistance, especially as the original 

 types of the genera are clearly indicated. Had this always been 

 done, we should have been spared a tremendous amount of con- 

 fusion, though few cases are quite so glaring as that of the genus 



