PRESS NOTICES OF VOL. II. XI. 



revised this difficult group. His catalogue of the Palsearctic Psychides includes no less than ir 

 families, 20 subfamilies, 36 genera (of which 8 are new) and 143 species, besides varieties, &c. 

 Among the Psychides, Mr. Tutt places several genera which many previous authors have included 

 in the Tineides, such as Diplodoma, Lypusa, Melasma, Solenobia, Taleporia, &c. But if we 

 exclude these we find that the Psychides proper, which a few years ago used to form a single 

 family of three genera at most, and which were often included in one, has now expanded to four 

 families comprising twelve sections and twenty-seven genera. This will appear to old-fashioned 

 entomologists a terrible and unnecessary amount of subdivision, but, in most similar cases, the 

 foresight of the author making the innovation is, sooner or later, largely justified by the judgment 

 of his successors. The natural history of each species is also worked out as exhaustively as 

 possible ; thus the account of Pachythelia villosella, Ochs., comprises more than eighteen 

 closely -printed pages. The reprint of the original description of each genus and 

 species, whether short or long, is a great assistance, especially as the original types 

 of the genera are clearly indicated. Had this always been done, we should have been 

 spared a tremendous amount of confusion, though few cases are quite so glaring as that of 

 the genus (Ecophora, to which we may here allude, though it does not belong to any of the 

 families that have yet been discussed by Mr. Tutt. . . . The remainder of the present volume 

 is devoted to a portion of the Lachneides (or Lasiocampides),.and the classification of Hiibner, 

 Aurivillius, Dyar, and others are quoted in full. Only five species are dealt with, however, in the 

 present volume — Poecilocampa populi, Trichiura crataegi, Lachneis lanestris, Malacosonta 

 castrensis and M. neustria. Mr. Tutt estimates that the remaining five genera and six species 

 of the superfamily Lachneides will occupy 200 pages of the next volume. In his remarks on the 

 phylogeny of the Lachneides, we are pleased to see that, while freely expressing his own views, 

 and criticising those of his predecessors, he puts them forward tentatively, and quite avoids the 

 dogmatic tone assumed by certain writers on what must necessarily long remain one of the most 

 difficult and uncertain problems in entomology — all the more so because, in lepidoptera at least, 

 we have nothing but the barest fragments of any geological record to help us to verify any of our 

 conclusions, and without this we are necessarily groping in the dark. Five of the seven plates in 

 the present volume are devoted to Psychides — phylogeny, neuration, spurs, antennae, imagines 

 and cases of IVhittleia retiella, and the transformations of Thyridopteryx ephemerae formt's. 

 Plate i is devoted to the wings, wing-scales, &c, of lepidoptera, and plate vii toDyar's phylogeny 

 of the Lachneides. We can fully sympathise with what Mr. Tutt says in his preface about the 

 difficulty of getting more matter into each volume ; but yet we should like to suggest that it 

 would be very useful to include in the Contents a list of the British genera and species discussed 

 in each volume. As the number of these is very limited, this would require very little space, and 

 would probably not involve the sacrifice of more than a single page." — W. F. Kirby, F.L.S., 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History. October, 1900. 



