Insects. 8353 



Descriptions of several new Species of Nepticula ; with Critical 

 Remarks on others.* 



Group I. 

 1. N. pomella, Stt. 9 Vyh. 



Capillis cum penicillis ferrugiueis, antennarum conchula flavido- 

 alba ; alis anterioribus vix nitidis, caeruleo-nigris, ciliis obscure 

 griseis. Exp. al. 2-| — 2-^-. lin. 



Vauyhan, In tell. 1858. Slainlon, Man. 2, 431. Pygmaeella, 

 Frey, Tin. 371, 3. Linn. Ent. xi. 371, 3 (excl. ref.) 



The frontal tuft, as also the cervical tuft, is bright ochreous-yellow, 

 the latter a little paler ; the eye-caps are rather large, whitish, 

 inclining somewhat to yellow ; the antennae of the female are half as 

 long as the anterior wings ; those of the male perceptibly longer, are 

 blackish, at the base more or less silvery gray ; the abdomen is 

 blackish gray, beneath paler gray, especially towards the anus ; the 

 anal tuft not yellow ; the legs are dark gray, the middle tibiae and the 

 tarsi yellowish white. The anterior wings are moderately broad, 

 rather coarsely scaled, of a uniform bluish black-brown, with a faint 

 olivaceous-bronzy tint ; the apical cilia dark gray, those of the anal 

 angle rather paler, at their bases with some scattered scales of the 

 ground colour projecting into them. Posterior wings and their cilia 

 are of the colour of the cilia at the anal angle of the anterior wings. 



That the N. pygmaeella of Frey should be referred to this is evi- 

 dent from a communicated specimen, which is only a little paler, and 

 which was likewise bred from apple-mines ; but I cannot believe that 

 this species is the N. pygmaeella of Stainton. Stainton, in the 

 'Natural History of the Tineina,' vol. i. p. 192, distinguishes the 

 latter from its allies by the pale ashy gray ground colour of the ante- 

 rior wings, and in his description calls the latter pale ashy gray, with 

 a very faint violet tint towards the apex, with paler cilia ; the colour 

 of the posterior wings he calls whitish gray. All this does not suit 

 for our N. pomella. On the other hand, I possess some caught speci- 

 mens which I unhesitatingly refer to N. pygmaeella, Stt. : they have 



* Translated from ' Some Remarks on the Species of the Genus Nepticula, by 

 H. von Heinemann in Braunschweig,' which appeared in the 8th and 10th numbers 

 (August and October, 1862) of the 6th volume of the 'Wiener Entomologische Mo- 

 natschrift.' 



N.B. The introductory portion of that paper has been translated and published in 

 the ■ Entomologist's Annual' for 1863, pp. 36—50. 



VOL. XXI. G 



