260 transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XXXIV. — Description of new Genera and Species of Psycliidse. 

 By E. W. Fereday, C.M.E.I3.L. 



Plate IX. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Ganterhury, Qth December, 1877.] 

 LlOTHULA, n.g. 

 [From XeioQ " smootli," and dvXa^ "a case."] 



Male. — Head small ; head and thorax pilose ; proboscis none ; palpi 

 obsolete; antenna? as long as the thorax, bipectinate, the branches very 

 long towards the base, from whence to beyond the middle the branches 

 abruptly decrease in length, and thence gradually decrease to the tip ; body 

 robust ; abdomen extending more than half its length beyond the hind 

 wing ; stout near the thorax and tapering thence to the tip ; legs slender ; 

 femora and tibise pilose ; fore-wings diaphanous, thickly clothed with scales, 

 narrow, nearly straight along the costa, slightly rounded at the tips, hind 

 margin very oblique ; discoidal cell closed by a transverse angular nervure, 

 the angle of which projects inwards ; median nervure emitting four branches", 

 the branches nearly equidistant from each other, the second sj^ringing from 

 the first at the point of junction of the transverse nervure. Between the 

 median nervure and the inner margin are two nervures which unite in the 

 disc and form one nervure from thence to the hind margin ; discoidal 

 cell divided longitudinally by two rather indistinct veins ; hind-wings with 

 discoidal cell closed by a transverse m'egular nervure and divided 

 longitudinally by a forked vein; median nervure emitting four branches, 

 the first of which springs from the second at about one-thu'd of the length 

 of the latter, which is abruptly curved at its base ; the second branch about 

 twice further from the third than from the first. 



Female. — Apterous. 



I cannot, from authorities at hand, find a description of any genus of 

 this family entirely applicable to this insect. The nearest appears to be 

 the genus Metura, described in the Catalogue of Lepidoptera in the British 

 IVEuseum. 



Liothula omnivora, n.s. 



Male. — Fuliginous. 



Expanse of wings — 14* 5 lines. 



Length of body — 8 lines. 



Hab. — Canterbury, New Zealand, especially in the neighbourhood of 

 Christchurch. 



Fig. A represents the male perfect insect. Larva varying from light 

 to dark dull brown, mottled with dirty white, sometimes with a pinkish 



