54 lOBD WALSINGHAM ON [JaU. 19, 



4. Revision of the West-Indian Micro- Lepidoptera, witli 

 Descriptions of new Species. By the Rt. Hon. Lord 

 Walsixgham, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 



[Received November b, 1896.] 



About two years ago I received a communication from Baron 

 W. von Hedemann asking me to examine and determine a col- 

 lection of Micro-Lepidoptera which be had made in the Danish 

 West Indies. Although at first very unwilling to undertake the 

 task, anticipating, not without reason, that there would be a large 

 amount of new material, and that it would involve a very diffi- 

 cult study of the synonymy of described species aud of general 

 classification, I felt that such a study must necessarily be very 

 instructive, aud that the opportunity should not be lost to enlarge 

 my limited acquaintance with the West-Indian fauna. Moreover, 

 as the Danish Islands lie to the north of those which supplied 

 the material for my previous paper [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1891, 

 pp. 492-549 (1892)], they promised to afford some connecting 

 links with the rich fauna of Xorth America, already somewhat 

 known to me. As to the instruction to be derived, and as to the 

 difficulty of the work undertaken, my calculations were not at 

 fault ; moreover, the rediscovery of Clemens's genus Cyclo^jlasis, 

 with some other decidedly Xorth-American forms, has been of 

 special interest in connexion with the subject of distribution. 

 The amount of material to be dealt with was largely increased by 

 the reception of a further collection from the same islands made 

 by Mr. Y. Gudmann. These, together with the Micros collected 

 by Mr. H. H. Smith in Grenada (from the Godman aud Salvin 

 collection), and others received from Dr. Eendall, Mr. T. D. A. 

 Cockerell, Mr. W. Schaus, Mr. T. W. I>ich, and the late 

 Monsieur E. Eagonot, form the materials of this paper. It is in 

 fact a second edition of the former one, bringing the West-Indian 

 catalogue of Micro-Lepidoptera up to date, on the lines of the new 

 system of classification put forward by Mr. E. Meyrick in his* 

 ' Handbook of British Lepidoptera,' which marks an epoch in the 

 study of these small and often obscure forms. 



When the paper was commenced I was working upon the 

 old hnes, with such modifications oulj' as had become obviously 

 necessary as the general study of the subject has advanced ; but 

 the pubhcation of Mr. Mevrick's book supplied a want, and his 

 system seemed to be so near at least to that which I was abeady 

 working up to by an independent course of study and reasoning, 

 that no effort was required to induce me to accept in the main 

 his sequence of the different famihes aud genera ; this has been 

 adopted so far as possible, with the one notable exception of the 

 position and value of the Tortricidce, which cannot, in my opinion, 

 be rightly separated from the Tineina, and should take a place 



