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DESCRIPTIONS OF AUSTRALIAN MICRO-LEPIDOPTERA. 



BY E. MEYRICK, B.A. 

 II. CEAMBITES (Continued). 



In the following paper, which may be regarded as supplementary 

 to the one published in Vol. III., pp. 175 216, 1 have described 

 all the remaining species of the group yet known to me as 

 occurring in this region, and have also been enabled to make a 

 few corrections and additions, relative to the species previously 

 described. Although these insects have been mostly collected 

 within a limited area, and represent only a fractional part of the 

 whole number of species of this group occurring in Australia, 

 they are yet sufficiently numerous to warrant a few general 

 remarks on the geographical distribution of that section of the 

 Lepidoptera of which they are representatives. 



The most remarkable point to be noticed is the almost universal 

 generic identity of the Australian species of Crambites with 

 European types ; but except in the case of imported species, no 

 specific identity, and very rarely any close specific resemblance 

 exists. The species yet described fall under 22 genera ; of these 

 two are represented by imported species only, three are also 

 Asiatic or American, one endemic, and the remaining 1 6 genera 

 are all European, and generally more or less cosmopolitan. This 

 peculiarity becomes more remarkable if we contrast the Crambites 

 with some of the principal families of Tineina, standing lower in 

 the scale of development ; in these (as will be shown in subsequent 

 papers) only the larger and more dominant genera of Europe are 

 represented, the great majority of species belonging to endemic 

 genera. Thus taking for comparison the Gelechidce, a family 

 which, like the Crambites, is distributed with remarkable evenness 

 over the whole world, an analysis of the materials at present 



