142 PROF. E. B. POtJLTOX OX 



and Southern Arabia, and desert fdrms are strongly in evidence. 

 Nearly all the species are of small size, the majority belong to a 

 few groups (especially Acidaliids and the Macaria group), and one 

 extensive subfamily (the L^rentiinae) is almost absent, being re- 

 presented by only two specimens, while even of these one is the 

 somewhat ailomalous Ps'iudostert'ha philcmria. The presence, in 

 the groups nanled, of a nunlber Of closely allied and inconspicuous 

 species (in some cases also strongly variable) has rendered a 

 satisfactory working-out of the material a matter of no small 

 difficulty ; and this difficulty has been increased by a curious 

 and unexjilained circumstailce which deserves mention — the 

 very marked prepoilderance of females-, this sex alone being 

 represented in not a few cases where there is quite a good 

 series of examples-. We are not unaccustomed to meeting with 

 Geometrid collections iii which the males alone of many species 

 are present, and are able rea,dily to attribute this to the greater 

 activity of the sex, the fact that the colliection was made chiefly 

 at light, and so on ; but it is less easy to suggest what difference 

 in habit-, or what particular method of collecting, has resulted in 

 the capture of the femaUs only of so many species. That the 

 phenomenon is not confined to a sitlgle genus or group will be 

 seen by referring to the details given below, under HierochtJionia 

 featheri, Acidaliasiis suhbribnnescens, Tephrina, nearly the whole 

 of the AcidaliinsS, etc.* 



tSubfam-. HemittJein^. 



Ten speci'es are Represented, most of them more or less highly 

 specialised forms, and including two additions to the handful of 

 known species in which the Characteristic green colour of the 

 subfamily has given pl-ace to some shade of brown or sand- 

 colour. 



YlCTORIA SEMATOPERAS-, sp. n. (PI. II. fig. 26, S •) 



S ? , 32-33 mm-. Face and upper side of palpus dark red ; 

 crown of head, base of antenila, and basal one-third or more of 

 costa red mixed with lustrous blue-blackish scales. Abdomen 

 dorsally slightly reddish, crests lustrolis, pale on summit, then 

 reddish, a deep black spot (dot) near base of each. Fore wing 

 with tetinen almost smooth ; green ^in all three discoloured by 

 relaxing) ; discal dot white, encirtled with a black-dusted red 

 ring; distal margin witk similarly coloured dark spots, namely a 

 small one in front of R\ a much larger one from R^ to beyond R^, 

 and a small or modemtely large one at tornus. Hind wing with 

 the excision between the radials not deep, discal dot as on fore 



* [Aftei- the aljove paragraph was written a number of additional specimens of 

 Geometridse were set and added to the collection. Mr. Prout wrote (Feb. 19, 1915), 

 concerning these additions :—^" They do not upset m.y generalisation as to the 

 preponderance of females ; indeed, they rather strent>-then it, being almost ex- 

 clusively of that sex except in one species {Heterosteffane indularia) whose males 

 were alreadj' well in evidence." On this subject see also p. 93. — E. B. P.] 



