8386 Insects. 



line, which is near the margin of the wing; beyond the cilia are hair- 

 like, but at first still yellowish, before the tips whitish, but both 

 colours are quite distinctly separated. The posterior wings are 

 whitish ; the cilia have a faint yellowish gloss. 



Very similar to Trifurcula pallidella in the colouring, but the fron- 

 tal tuft is paler, and the antennae are shorter and more slender. 



Buchheister, in May, 1860, took five specimens, quite similar, on 

 the steins of beech trees. On the Asse, near Wolfenbuttel. 



Studies on the Genus Lithosia. By Achille Guenee. Translated 

 from the 'Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France,' Vol. 

 1861, p. 39, by Edward Newman : and additional Notes by 

 Henry Doubleday : these last are invariably followed by the 

 initials H. D. 



During the last five-and-twenty years Lepidopterology, at least so 

 far as regards the study and determination of European species, has 

 made very considerable progress : we may now say that well-named 

 collections, which at that period, in France, were the rare exceptions, 

 have now become the rule : nevertheless, certain families and genera 

 still resist this onward movement, and make blots, so to speak, in the 

 midst of even the best-named collections. The Entomological Society 

 of France has very properly called attention to the genera Syrichtus 

 and Eupithecia, and to the family Zygaenidae : I am now about to 

 introduce to its notice a genus no less difficult, and much more 

 treacherous than either : supposing it to be thoroughly known, ento- 

 mologists have neglected to study it as it ought to be studied. The 

 consequence has been that the genus Lithosia is not only one of 

 those in which the determination of species has been peculiarly care- 

 less, r but the synonymy equally inaccurate, — two defects which pro- 

 ceed from the same cause, the great similarity of the species to each 

 other. 



On these grounds I have concluded that T may be rendering some 

 service to my colleagues in offering them a monographic notice of the 

 genus ; first, however, eliminating those species which present no dif- 

 ficulty whatever ; such, for instance, as Lithosia quadra, L. rubricol- 

 lis, L. muscerda, &c. In order to avoid those long descriptions which 

 are but little read amongst ourselves, and are scarcely ever translated 

 by our foreign colleagues, I have written Latin diagnoses, in which I 

 have endeavoured to sum up the characters of each, as exactly as the 



