( 281 ) 



XXVII. Characters of a few Australian "LeyidiO^iexdi, col- 

 lected by Mr. Thomas R. Oxley. By Edward New- 

 man, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 



[Read 3rd December, 1855.] 



The intelligence of the establishment of an Entomological Society 

 and Museum at Melbourne, while it gives us assurance of the 

 rapid advance and social progress of that infant colony, leads us to 

 anticipate results in Natural History which the isolated labourers 

 in this distant land could never hope to attain : at the same time 

 it wafts to us across the world of waters a silent reproof of our 

 own neglect of the entomological riches of a soil bound by every 

 tie but that of proximity to our own. How few, how meagre, 

 how scattered have been the attempts of Englishmen to make 

 known the Entomology of Australia! the names of Levvin, Dono- 

 van, Kirby, MacLeay, Hope, Gray, Westwood, and a few others, 

 may be noticed as those of Entomologists who have severally con- 

 tributed their mite to our knowledge of the subject : on the con- 

 tinent Germar, Erichson and Boisduval have done more, and have 

 done it more systematically ; but even though we add the labours 

 of our neighbours to our own, we shall still find that the insects 

 of New Holland are, as a mass, unnamed and unarranged, even at 

 the present day. These thoughts have arisen spontaneously while 

 looking over a small collection made by Mr. Oxley, during a short 

 residence in the province of Victoria ; this he has obligingly placed 

 in my hands, and I find that scarcely an msect it contains appears 

 hitherto to have received — that first of all distinctions — a name. 

 It is too late in life for me to attempt to supply the want which I 

 deplore, but I beg to offer to the Society the characters of a few 

 species of Lepidopteia, which I suppose to be new, thus adding 

 my own mite to the contributions of the savans I have already 

 enumerated. 



It is interesting to find at the Antipodes forms among the Lepi' 

 doptera so nearly resembling those of our own country. This simi- 

 larity is particularly striking amongst the Micro- Lepidoplera ; the 

 genera Tortrix, Chimabacche, Tinea, Adela, Depressaria, Gelechia, 

 (Ecophora, Anesychnia, Glyphiplcryx, Lithocolletis and Plerophorus, 

 so familiar at home, being unquestionably represented in our Aus- 

 tralian colonies ; and lead us to speculate on the characters of the 

 country where such forms occur : thus Tinea Ethellclla seems to 

 assure us of the presence of Fungi ; and the great preponderance 



