ACANTHOPSYCHE OPACELLA. 383 



positor sheath, and beneath it two rounded papillae. At the sides of 

 the 7th-9th segments (3rd-5th abdominal) are small tufts of erect, soft, 

 white hairs. Newman states on the authority of Doubleday that "the 

 female possesses legs and antennas, characters in which it very de- 

 cidedly differs from the apod scolicomorphous females of several ascer- 

 tained species." [The specimens here referred to came from the New 

 Forest in Hampshire, where Weaver found larvae in the summer of 1848.] 

 Standfuss observes that the female when extracted from the pupa 

 shows a distinct clothing of hair, but when it emerges this is im- 

 mediately rubbed off owing to its movements. Bruand notes that 

 the female has small woolly tufts on segments 4-8. 



Variation. — The following appears to be the only named variety : 



a. var. senex, Staud., " Cat.," p. 63 (1871) ; Bom., " Mem. sur Lep.," ii., p. 7 

 (1885); Kirby, "Cat. Lep. Het.," p. 507 (1892); Caradja, "Iris," viii., p. 86 

 (1895). — Alis hyalinalis, thorace abclomineque albido-hirsutis, antennis crassioribus 

 (spec, propr. ?). Bulgaria, Armenia (Staudinger). 



Caradja has since recorded this variety from Eoumania, noting 

 that his cases were found at Grumazesti on grass and trunks in a 

 birch wood, in 1893. Staudinger also records it from Tiflis in Trans- 

 caucasia. Heylaerts refers Zeller's Ober-Albula example, described 

 as " being like opacella but with rather more hairy body," to this 

 variety. 



Comparison of Acanthopsyche opacella with A. zelleri and A. 

 ecksteini. — Chapman suggests that the two species zelleri and ecksteini 

 are congeneric with A. opacella. The following notes may be interest- 

 ing: * 



A. zelleri, Mann, Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien, v., pp. 756-7, pi. vi., figs. 1-8. — This 

 species is very like A. opacella, but the J has much shorter antennae, and differently 

 shaped wings, whilst the ? is reddish-yellow in colour. The male is of the size and 

 colour of A. opacella, the head, thorax, and abdomen similarly covered with whitish- 

 grey hairs. The antennal pectinations are similar, but whilst the antennas are two- 

 thirds the length of the forewings in A. opacella, they are scarcely half the length in 

 zelleri. The wings of the latter are much shorter and rounder, the apex and outer 

 margin more rounded ; they are also more densely scaled, the scales thicker on the 

 nervures and at the end of the discoidal cell, hence the nervures look thicker. The 

 underside as the upper ; the palpi, legs and neuration as in opacella. The ? vermi- 

 form, reddish-yellow, with glossy brown head and neck. The $ case is very like 

 that of A. opacella ; it is entirely covered with fine grains of sand, and over this with 

 sharp, pointed, pieces of plant stems which are, however, so loosely fastened that 

 they are readily detached when touched. The ? case almost entirely lacks this 

 covering, the grains of sand are larger and coarser and are spun on with coarser 

 white silk. The cases were found in the middle of April at Draga in Croatia, spun 

 up on walls ; the imagines emerged from the beginning to end of May, usually from 

 10 a.m. -12 a.m. Lederer also received the species from Pesth, the imagines (both 

 sexes) agreeing with those from Draga, but the cases differ, the outside of the Pesth 

 examples being covered with little pieces of bark firmly attached (Mann). 



A. zelleri is rather smaller than A. opacella (5 : 6), the antennal 

 joints of both are 29 in number ; the scaling of A. zelleri a little more 

 dense, the cases distinctly smaller, but the form and materials nearly 

 identical (the A. opacella cases in the Brit. Museum collection are in 

 fine order, those of A. zelleri very worn, as one usually sees the cases 

 of A. opacella after weathering and the ravages of the young larvae) 

 (Chapman). 



A. ecksteini, Led., " Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien," v., pp. 755-6, pi. vi., figs. 1-6 

 (1855). — The imago comes nearest to P. villoxella, the neuration as in the latter 

 species, specimens of both sometimes having nervures 4 and 5 stalked, at others 

 separate, and sometimes originating at one point ; slightly smaller than P. 



