166 BBITISH LEPIDOPTEBA. 



Wocke to Zeller. The species that Barrett recorded as wockii is not 

 that species. It differs in its greyer colouring (in S. wockii it is yellow- 

 ish), in its proportionately narrower wings, and less marked reticula- 

 tion, but, in the latter respect, both S. wockii and S. inconspicuella 

 appear to vary. It is somewhat greater in expanse than the largest 

 British S. inconspicuella, wherein it appears to agree with the Eatisbon. 

 series. There is no proof that inconspicuella (true) has ever been 

 taken abroad, or that wockii (true) has ever been taken in Eng- 

 land. Continental authors having been inclined to unite their 

 supposed inconspicuella with their wockii, rather tends to prove that 

 their incoyispicuella is not our inconspicuella, than that inconspicuella, 

 Sta. = wockii, Hein. It is rather significant that the only $ speci- 

 mens of inconspicuella in the ' Zeller ' collection were received from 

 Stainton and Douglas, and that the only continental specimen that he 

 referred to inconspicuella (with a ?) [vide, Stett. Ent. Ztg., xxxix., p. 

 117 (1878)] is now placed in his series of wockii to which it seems 

 certainly to belong. Wocke's specimens of wockii (true) were origin- 

 ally labelled ' inconspicuella.'' " It may be that the two examples in 

 the " Doubleday" collection, referred to by Durrant {Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 xxxiii., p. 220), are the form regarded by Barrett as wockii. 



Comparison of S. inconspicuella with its allies. — 8. inconspicuella 

 only differs from S. triquetrella* in having the upper wings a little 

 narrower, and the discoidal lunule more distinctly marked in dark grey. 

 The neuration also offers some slight differences. I consider it a 

 distinct species. The ? only differs from that of S. triquetrella by its 

 darker tint (Bruand). 8. inconspiduella is smaller than 8. pineti and 

 has more blunted forewings, it also has much larger pale grey spots on 

 them than have 8. clathrella, 8. mannii and S. triquetrella ; the ground 

 colour, too, is darkened at the end of the nervures that run to the 

 outer margin, forming a row of spots. The body is somewhat darker 

 than that of 8. pineti, the hairs somewhat darker grey, and on the 

 abdomen sparser .... The forewings of the males of 8. inconspicuella 

 are posteriorly somewhat widened, broader than in S. pineti towards 

 the rounded and shorter apex, and broader than in 8. triquetrella at 

 the inner angle ; they are as dark grey as in S. pineti but with many 

 large whitish-grey spots, which are not sharply defined, and are more 

 confluent than in the other species (Zeller). It is just possible that 

 some of the so-called distinct Continental species are not specifically 

 distinct from S. inconspicuella, their time of appearance and general 

 habits being almost identical. "We have already noticed the similarity 

 between this species and 8. wockii. Hofmann notes that the Breslau 

 specimens of 8. wockii are probably referable to 8. inconspicuella. Of 

 the six males of loockii he had, he says that three had the bases of 

 nervures 4 and 5 apart, and the inner portion of the discoidal cell a 

 little longer than the outer, whilst in the three others, the bases of 4 

 and 5 are joined and the inner portion of the cell much longer. They 

 only differ, he says, from S. inconspicuella, in being somewhat larger 

 and the inner portion of the middle cell being always somewhat longer 

 than the outer. Chapman says that the 8. wockii in Constant's collection 

 have come from Switzerland, Silesia and Austria, but that he cannot 



* Stainton refers (Ent. Week. Intell., v., p. 147) Bruand's S. triquetrella to S. 

 inconspicuella, Sta. 



