150 THE entomologist's record. 



Stainton, Meyrick, Barrett, and others. The departure has been placed 

 somewhere near Tck-hnhia ( PHijclioidcs ) rr/'A^cZ^cZ/rt (aLamproniid ?), and 

 some of the members of the heterogeneous genus Tinea, c.//., Tinea cinca- 

 lella and^'. lenjiuldella, although, as we have said, probably on the Tineid 

 stirps, have some decided Psychid habits, and suggest certain Psychid 

 affinities. (One might here indulge in a pious hope that our micro- 

 lepidopterists will, without delay, give us a rational generic grouping of 

 the species now included in Tinea.) The Psychid habits here referred . 

 to may have been, probably have been, obtained from a common 

 ancestor antecedent to the branching of the Psychid from the Tineid 

 and Adelid stems, but there ought to be some readily obtainable data 

 on Avhich to found a definition that will separate, fairly sharply, a 

 Tineid from a Psychid in its various stages. The imaginal tongue, 

 the arrangement and character of the larval tubercles i, ii, the hooks 

 on the larval prolegs, the female anal tuft, and the apterous female 

 itself, offer certain tests. The latter, however, would exclude Diplo- 

 (louHi and Xi/s)iiatodo)na, undoubted Psychids, from the Psychid stirps. 

 The difficulty rests more particularly with Teichuhia (rsi/cJtoides), and 

 we have been quite unable to obtain from any of our correspondents 

 a single larva of this species, so much wanted to settle this critical 

 point. One could not help being struck, when Mr. Burr was express- 

 ing his regret at the South London Entomological Society, on April 

 28th, that so few entomologists took up the study of Orthoptera, and, 

 in his wisdom, contrasted the ignorance of orthopterists as to the 

 Furficulidae, &c., with the detailed knowledge of all the groups of. Lepi- 

 doptera possessed by the lepidopterists, whether the Forjiculidae of the 

 world were not better known than the l'!:iijclndae. The fact is lepidopterists 

 cannot yet separate, structurally, the large groups of Lepidoptera, and 

 so few structural details are known, that it is yet a matter of opinion 

 with some that all the small Psychids are Tineina and all the large 

 ones Bombycids, Avhilst the intermediate size of the Fumeas leave 

 these open to doubt even on this ground, and they become Tineids or 

 Psychids, according as the judgment of the individual leads him to 

 consider them large or small. It would appear that the imaginal 

 mouth-parts, the arrangement of the larval tubercles i, ii, the horse- 

 shoe shape assumed by the crochets of the prolegs, the two dorso- 

 lateral anal spikes of the pupa, the anal tuft of the female, and the 

 mode of egg-laying, offer more or less fairly distinctive Psychid charac- 

 ters, whilst the use of only one end of the larval case, and the tendency 

 for a larva in motion to carry its case more or less upright (of course 

 modified by Aveight), are also characters of secondary value. The 

 apterous condition of the female in most Psychids is very marked, but 

 just at present one is rather interested in attempting to learn which 

 are the Psychids allied to Tfijdodovia and Xijsinatodohia, that have 

 winged females, and that are possibly classed as Tineids. 



Entomological Notes from the Riviera and Locarno. 



By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



A week at Alassio at the end of March did not give much material 



for guaging its attractions for the entomologist, but it appears to be 



the most available station between Genoa and San Remo. It is 



especially frequented by English people in winter, and so accommoda- 



