120 Mr. E. Meyrick on the 



now, except to remark that it is accurately separable into 

 three sharply-marked families. 



Neuration has probably been neglected, as being less 

 easily observed than other characters. Yet, when one 

 has become tolerably familiar with the principal types 

 and deviations of structure, it can almost always be 

 readily discerned by an examination of the under surface 

 of the wings, where the veins usually stand out more 

 prominently. In cases of special difficulty the wing 

 may be rendered momentarily transparent with benzine, 

 but the cilia are sometimes injured in this way. In the 

 Tortricina and larger Tineina the veins can almost in- 

 variably be made out without much trouble. 



The neuration forms, in my opinion, the most reliable 

 guide to the classification of the Lepidoptera. In 

 examining large numbers of new species I have been 

 greatly struck by the persistence of its character in 

 particular groups, even when the form of the wings 

 undergoes extreme modifications. I do not mean to 

 affirm that differences of neuration are always of im- 

 portance ; Cerostoma, Lat., and Blabophanes, Z., may be 

 instanced as displaying considerable variation in this 

 respect within genera undoubtedly natural ; yet even 

 here the variation is confined to certain limits, and 

 Blabophanes, though hardly two species are identical in 

 neuration, is yet absolutely separable from all its allies 

 by neural characters alone. But in 450 Australian 

 (Ecophorida I found the type of neuration absolutely 

 identical throughout, and in general I have assured 

 myself that it affords a means of denning accurately the 

 natural families of the Tineina, and probably the whole 

 of the Lepidoptera. In the Proc. Linn. Soc. of New 

 South Wales for this year I have pointed out how well 

 it serves to define the natural, yet hitherto practically 

 uncharacterised, genera of the Crambidce. And in the 

 present paper I have endeavoured to set forth the con- 

 clusions to which I have been led in the investigation of 

 a principal group of the Tineina ; by the result of 

 which I desire that the principles involved may be 

 estimated. 



It should be kept in mind that, when a group has 

 been defined by considerations of structure alone, if such 

 a group is found to be locally distributed so as to be 

 confined to or excluded from one or more zoological 

 regions, the argument for its naturalness is very greatly 



