98 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



characteristic and noticeable, but they are essentially identical in small 

 species such as Fumea, except in the Luffias, where they are very 

 obvious but not so fully developed as in Psyche. I do not know any 

 other family that has the hooks otherwise than on the solid plate of the 

 segment. It is no doubt the case, however, that there is no funda- 

 mental difference between the solid and the flexible (intersegmental) 

 portion of the segment, and that the segment may be divided between 

 these in different proportions, and so it may be that the position of 

 this row of hooks in Psychids corresponds to that of the fixed 

 posterior row in the Tortricids, &c. It seems to be certain, however, 

 that these hooks have developed within the superfamily and meet a 

 special requirement. The pup® of the lower Psychids cannot be 

 absolutely differentiated by description from some Adelids. They 

 have dorsal spines on abdominal segments 3-8, arranged as a patch four 

 or five deep. They have the dorso-anal hooks on the 10th abdominal 

 segment, and they have very short maxillae of length equal to that of the 

 labial palpi and so placed outside these as to fully expose them. The 

 lower Psychids differ from Tineids in having the dorsal spines arranged 

 as a patch instead of a row, and, in this, they agree with sundry 

 Adelids, Tischeria, and a few others. These differ only in having 

 the 2nd abdominal segment nearly free instead of the 3rd, as in 

 Psychids. The higher Adelids, such as Lampronia rubiella, have the 

 dorsal spines in one straight row or nearly so as in Tineids. We have 

 then to fall back on forms as low as Incurvaria (piuscalella) to find any- 

 thing from which the Psychids can be derived. I. muscalella, except 

 for the well-developed maxillary palpus and the slightly greater 

 freedom of the anterior abdominal segments, might be an early 

 Solenobiid, at least, the $ might be, as its pupa has the dorso-anal 

 spines exactly as in Solenobia. The $• also has dorsal spines, but has 

 others a 3 well. These anal spines are very various in these different 

 early families, e.g., L. rubiella has the dorsal spines on the 10th 

 abdominal in the male, but they are wanting in the ? ,which has a pair on 

 the dorsum of the 8th abdominal. Scardia bnletihas a ventral pair, very 

 similar to those of the higher Psychids, &nd.Myrmecocela ochraceella has a 

 complete coronet of them. Tischeria and some others have them 

 lateral, but directed a little dorsally, very rounded in T. dodonaea, very 

 sharp in T. angusticolella. As Incurvaria muscalella is about the lowest 

 of the Aculeate-Lepidoptera above the Eriocraniids, and presents the 

 only pupa not distinctly in advance of Psychids (lower in some respects) , 

 the Psychids clearly can have no very close relatives except any that may 

 be derived from themselves, and there do not appear to be any such 

 derivatives that are not fairly within the family itself. Tinea, 

 Tischeria, and perhaps a few others, such as Psychoides, deserving 

 separate rank, originated at about the same point. In the higher 

 Psychids there are some few subsidiary characters of an almost obtect 

 nature. The passage from the lower to the higher Psychids is bridged 

 over by the family containing 'Bacotia sepium and Lttffia lapidella, which 

 have, in the male pupas only, the posterior hooks of the lower Psychids, 

 the female pupa? being without them ; the males also have the dorsal 

 spines placed into an alignment of one row, and the posterior interseg- 

 mental hooks are in process of development, being small conical points 

 on one row of the minute plates that form the tessellated structure of 

 the soft intersegmental membrane. 



