3IICR0-PSYCHINA. 131 



and wanting the labial palpi." Here we see, then, that Zeller really 

 comes to the conclusion that the Psychids and the Taleporiids are con- 

 tinuous, that they form, in reality, one evolutionary group, and yet he 

 places the Micro -Psychids among the Tineids and the Macro-Psychids 

 among the Bombycids. 



Although Zeller indirectly came to this conclusion, Bruand arrived 

 (Mon. des Psy chides, 1853) at it, in a more direct manner, but his 

 recognition of the unity of the group led him to state his views so 

 forcibly that lepidopterists hesitated to follow him. He asserted that 

 the Solenobiids, Luffiids, Fumeids, Epichnopterygids, and Psychids 

 formed really only a single genus, and so included them all in his 

 genus Psyche. He drew comparisons between such insects as 

 Psychoides verhuella and Canephora unicolor that excited ridicule, and, 

 at a time when more detail was being asked for in classification, he 

 indulged in generalisations. The result was that although he had a 

 more correct view of the relationships of the group than other lepi- 

 dopterists of his time, his conclusions were put aside, whilst Zeller, 

 Stainton, and Herrich-Schaffer disseminated the somewhat illogical 

 conclusions of the first- and last-named, in their various works, and 

 these authors have been, for a long time, followed by most European 

 systematists. 



Herrich-Schaffer also isolated the Taleporiids and Solenobiids from 

 the Macro-Psychids (which latter he allied with the Cochlidids and 

 Anthrocerids) and placed them among the Tineids. He criticised 

 Boisduval for uniting the Micro- and Macro-Psychids, yet his criticism, 

 from our modern point of view, really only amounts to a want of 

 recognition that the more specialised forms of each group of Lepidop- 

 tera have arisen from more generalised ones along certain lines. He 

 asserts that Boisduval' s Psychids do not form a homogeneous family, 

 that Zeller's Taleporiids are included therein, but that these are 

 sharply differentiated therefrom by large secondary eyes (ocelli), dis- 

 tinct palpi and unpectinated antennae. He then separates, " on 

 account of the inner marginal nervure of the forewings, the two pairs 

 of spurs on the hind tibiae, and the presence of antennae and legs in 

 tbe females," the genus Canephora (Fuinea and Epichnoptery.v) from 

 the Macro-Psychids, placing them in the Tineids, nearest to 

 Taleporia. Herrich-Schaffer evidently did not know the Epichnop- 

 fcerygid female. He further distributes the Micro-Psychid genera 

 among the Tineids in a somewhat erratic manner : Genus 22 — 

 Solenobia. Genus 23 — XysmaTodoma. Genus 42 — Taleporia, &c. 



Structurally, of course, the Micro-Psychid genera — Narycia, Diplo- 

 doma, I'silothri.r, Melasma, and Lypusa — differ from the remaining 

 Micro- Psychids in having winged females, the Taleporiids, Solenobiids, 

 and Luffiids agreeing, in this respect, Avith the Fumeids and Macro - 

 Psychids. The Micro-Psychids, too, as a whole, differ from the Macro- 

 Psychids in the structure of the male antennae, yet in Dissoctena, the 

 Luffiids, and the Fumeids, the characters overlap in a way that defies 

 I definition. In Diplodoma, Bankesia, and Taleporia the imagines are 

 characterised by the presence of ocelli at the base of the antennae. In 

 all the Micro-Psychids, as Zeller long since pointed out, the male and 

 female pupa-cases protrude from the cocoon, although Lujffia and 

 Bacutia, in this particular, agree with the Macro-Psychids, the female 

 pupa-case being retained within the cocoon. In the Luffiids and- 



