STERRHOPTERIX HIRSUTELLA. 421 



Garb., " S. B.-Akad. Wiss. Wien, &c," ci., p. 933 (1892); Barr., " Ent. Mo. Mag.," 

 xxx., p. 249 (1894); "Brit. Lep.," ii., p. 344 (1895); Eobs., " Lep. North, and 

 Durham," p. 76 (1899). Fuscella, Meig., "Eur. Schmett.," iii., p. 10, pi. 88, fig. 10 

 (1832). 



Original description. — Halbdurchsichtige Schabe. Tinea hivsutella. 

 Fig. 3 mas. Hivsutella, S.V. — Diese ist etwas kleiner als Vorige (T. 

 viciella). Das Mannchen hat im Verhaltniss gegen jene einen schlangern 

 Leib und grossere, zartere, einigermassen durchsichtige, blassgefarbte 

 Fliigel, und das Weibchen ist merklich kleiner als selbige. Sie wird 

 in hiesiger Gegend mit der graminella, doch viel seltner angetroffen 

 (Hiibner, Eur. Schmett., &c, p. 14). 



Imago.— Anterior wings broad ; 18-5mm.-25mm. in expanse ; apex 

 rounded, dark grey, and moderately clothed with fine hair-scales when 

 fresh (paler grey, inclining to brownish when faded), semi-transparent, 

 unicolorous, nervures distinct, but scarcely darker, fringes unicolorous. 

 Posterior wings and fringes unicolorous, of the same tint as the fore- 

 wings. 



Neuration. — Bruand notes that in the male of this species the 

 internal nervure of the forewings is still bifurcate, but the bifurcation 

 does not reach the lower margin. This species, therefore, forms a 

 natural passage from the species with the inner nervure bifurcate and 

 those in which it is simple. Standfuss says that it has not been 

 hitherto noticed that, of the long stalked nervures, 8 and 9, of 

 the forewings, very often the one branch and sometimes the other, 

 often on one wing but occasionally on both, is absent. Heylaerts notes 

 that there are, in the forewings of many specimens eleven nervures, in 

 others twelve. The median cell is divided ; nervures 4 and 5, 7 and 

 8 are stalked ; 6 is the continuation of the nervure that divides the 

 middle cell. In the hindwings also the middle cell is divided, the 

 transverse nervure runs perpendicularly, afterwards obliquely out- 

 wards ; nervures 4 and 5 are stalked ; 6 runs here below the longi- 

 tudinal nervure which divides the middle cell, whilst 8 independently 

 starts from the base. 



Sexual dimorphism. — <? . The peculiar smoky look of the male 

 seems to depend on the coloration of the wing-membrane as well as on 

 the dark hair-scales with which the wing is very sparsely scaled. They 

 are very irregularly placed on the wing, and are perhaps 6-10 of their 

 diameters apart, it being difficult in their irregular placing to say 

 which two hair-scales it is fair to measure between. On the wing- 

 surface they are about •15mm. long and quite hair-like, towards the 

 fringes they get longer and broader, so that two or even three stri«3 

 may be counted on some of them, though even here they are rather 

 hair-scales than scales, if such a distinction is to be drawn. No spined 

 area (haftfeld) apparently exists. A curious structure seen in some 

 Psychids is very well marked here, which one might begin, probably 

 erroneously, by calling an extension of the wing margin, from its inner 

 base along the side of the thorax backwards, quite beyond and behind 

 the origin of the nervures. The portion examined is about •5mm. 

 long and perhaps •04mm. wide, and looking very like a long tube, with 

 alternate constrictions or expansions like a camera tube or a Chinese 

 lantern, and connected with the thoracic wall by a delicate membrane ; 

 it carries a few scales. In the neuration, la of the forewing is very ill- 

 developed and cannot be traced forwards to lb with any certainty. The 

 margin of the hindwings is regularly rounded with no trace of notch 



