( US ) 



VI. A preliminary catalogue of the Lepidoptera Heterocera 

 of Trinidad. By William James Kaye, F.E.S. 



[Read February 5th, 1901.] 



Plates V. and VI. 



Although Trinidad is within such easy reach of England, 

 and has the inducement to visitors of being in a civilized 

 state, its Lepidopterous fauna has been almost wholly 

 neglected, and no scientific lists have been published, 

 except the preliminary list of the butterflies by Mr. Crow- 

 foot in the Transactions of the Trinidad Literary and 

 Philosophical Society. This is all the more remarkable as 

 the fauna is an exceedingly rich one, as one might expect 

 in an island belonging to the Neotropical Region and lying 

 so near to the Equator. The butterflies enumerated in 

 Mr. Crowfoot's list number up 199, and this is far short of 

 the actual total as my own records can show. If one can 

 compute at all the number of Heterocera,, it should, without 

 including Tortricidze and Tincidx, not fall far short of 

 1000 species even at a modest estimate. I have been able 

 to record only 245 at present, not including the Tortricidte 

 and Tineidaz, but I hope to supplement this number at 

 a future date. Hitherto nothing has, I believe, been 

 published on the moths of Trinidad. It has therefore been 

 necessary to search through the specimens at the British 

 Museum for Trinidad labels. Comparatively few have been 

 found, and the species are mostly those taken by my 

 brother, Mr. S. Kaye, at Verdant Vale in 1895, and my 

 own captures in various parts of the island in May and 

 June 1898. My best thanks are due to Sir George 

 Hampson for valuable help and advice in the compilation 

 of this list. I have presented the types of new species to 

 the British Museum. 



Family SYNTOMIDiE. 



COSMOSOMA MELATHOKACIA, n. sp. (Plate V, fig. 10.) 



Frons and collar bronze-green. Thorax with patagia and teguloe, 

 and abdomen black, the last with square-shaped spots above, of 

 the same colour as the collar ; except on first segment where 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1901. — PART II. (JULY) 9 



