60 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 
tibial spur as an organ varying a good deal in different species, and so 
affording a specific character, whilst in the family of Psychidae it 
affords a subfamily character. 
The Fumeid species may be divided into two groups : 
1. With short spurs (under -64 of tibia); median accessory cell; reticulate 
wing markings (usually). 
Of these I have verified reticulatella and comitella, and presume 
from descriptions that raiblensis, rowasti, and norveyica belong to this 
group. 
2. With spurs over ‘64 in length; with median nervure simple; without any 
suggestion of wing reticulations. 
a. Species with spurs of length °65-°75: (1) Crassiorella. (2) Afinis. (3) Mit- 
fordella, n. sp. (4) Hibernicella, n. sp. (5) Subflavella. (6) Edwardsella, 
8. Species with spurs of length -77-°81: (7) Casta with vars. nitidella, inter- 
mediella, bowerella. (8) Scotica. 
vy. Spurs °85: (9) Germanica, n. sp. 
All these Fumeas clothe their larval cases with straw-like material 
placed lengthwise on the cases, and it is supposed that the nature and 
size of this material affords specific characters of value. In the first 
place, I think the material is more rarely straws of grass stems than is 
generally believed, and many of the cases. that look most white and 
straw-like and are at once taken to be covered with grass stems are 
really clothed with dead stalks and pedicels of various flowering plants. 
Some cases that apparently belong to the same species as straw-covered 
ones are encased in leaves of fir, whilst the size of the case and of the 
materials covering it depend much more on the sex of the specimen 
and on the materials available than on anything else. 
I doubt very much whether the larve will present any characters 
of use to separate the most allied species; even the most separated 
species have larve so alike that it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
define them by absolute description, and for the present, at any rate, I 
have no material adequate to make any such attempt. 
The want of fully correlated material is perhaps to some extent the 
reason I have to make much the same confession as to specific 
characters in the @s. The only definite distinction I know of is 
between Masonia crassiorella 9 and Fumea casta 2 , the former haying 
reduced tarsal joints, the latter the full five to each tarsus. 
The neuration gives a very definite division between the short- 
spurred and long-spurred sections of the genus, the former possessing 
the median accessory cell, in the latter the median nervure is simple. 
This distinction is at least valid in the species I have examined. 
T hoped to find some useful characters in the antenne and have 
not been altogether disappointed, but have been obliged to conclude 
that there is considerable variation in the antenne within the limits 
of a species. Whether MM. crasstorella with 21 antennal joints is or is not 
the same species as one with 24, may seem to be properly decided in 
the latter sense, but when we find JV. crasstorella having 22 and 23 joints 
to the antenne amongst specimens that it is impossible to doubt are 
all the same species, it is difficult on this ground to distinguish those 
with 21 or 24 as distinct. ‘The same considerations apply strongly to 
the forms of J’. casta. That the antenne are variable within the species 
is confirmed by an examination of the antennal structure. The 
antenna consists of a large basal joint, the second joint is also large 
and globular, normally the third is the first of the clavola or flagellum 
