2Q4: [Npvember, 1898. 



submitted three of them to Stainton, who identified them as A. 

 decimella, Stn. : Woeke then proceeds to describe his insect in detail, 

 under the name decimella, from five specimens in good condition. 

 Now, in the Stainton continental collection is a single moth standing 

 as " Decimella, Sta.," and bearing a reference No. " 2870," which is 

 shown by the note book to mean that it is '"'' Argyresthia decimella,''^ and 

 was received with other insects from Wocke on September 21st, 1863 : 

 this then is obviously one of, or at any rate con-specific with, the three 

 specimens on which Stainton founded his determination of Wocke's 

 Norwegian species as decimella. How he was led into such an error 

 must remain a mystery, for it does not bear even a superficial resem- 

 blance to the true decimella, Stn. ! At any rate, he cannot have taken 

 the trouble to compare the Norwegian specimens with the original 

 type of decimella, which was in the collection of his friend, J. J. Weir. 

 His mistake is the cause of Wocke having entered " Norway " as a 

 habitat for A. decimella in Staudinger's and Wocke's Catalogue (1871), 

 and of Meyrick's remark, HB. Br. Lep., 765 (1895), "A. decimella, 

 Stt., a North European species, is said to have occurred once near 

 London ; the specimen may probably have been introduced with 

 plants." 



I am unable to refer Wocke's Norwegian Argyrestliia with cer- 

 tainty to any species known to me, but from a comparison of the 

 single example in the Stainton collection with a selected series of con- 

 tinental forms of A. aMominalis, Ti., it seems possible that it may be 

 a dark northern variety of this species ; the pattern of the markings 

 is exactly identical, though their colour is, in the Norwegian insect, 

 very much browner than in any recognised forms of ahdominalis that 

 I have seen. It seems clearly advisable for the present to regard it 

 as a possible variety of ahdominalis, for we have not sufficient justifi- 

 cation for describing it as n. sp., and even if, owing to its slender 

 palpi and narrow hind-wings, we definitely exclude the unique 

 decimella, Stn., from the genus Argyrestliia, Wocke's definition of his 

 Norwegian insect as Argyrestliia decimella cannot stand, because 

 the name is homonymous by erroneous adoption. A. inauratella, 

 Tngstr., which Wocke (Z. c.) says was unknown to him, is very closely 

 allied to ahdominalis, but I have failed to find specimens of it in any 

 of the European collections in this country, and, from Tengstrom's 

 description, the markings appear to differ from those of Wocke's 

 insect. The Swiss A. Huguenini, Frey [MT. Schweiz., Ent. Ges., vi, 

 869 — 70, No. 99 (1882)], which also approaches ahdominalis, is, as yet, 

 only known to me by name. 



The Rectory, Corfe Castle : 



September Hth, 1898. 



