a ee eee eer, eee 
iv PREFACE. 
uo descriptions of larve are introduced, as the space would not 
permit it. With reference to the synonymy, the works of the 
principal writers were carefully gone over, and the descriptions 
identified with known species, or set aside as undistinguishable. 
The synonymy of the species described in this volume is given 
more fully in the Catalogue of British Micro-Lepidoptera (Zineina), 
which I have been conducting through the press, for the Trustees 
of the British Museum, simultaneously with this volume; but 
neither did that Catalogue, any more than the present volume, 
admit of the introduction of critical disquisitions on the synonymy 
of the species, 
To have gone minutely and critically into the synonymy, to 
have described the larva of each species and its entire habits in 
detail, would have completely altered the design of this work ; but 
T purpose at no distant date, in conjunction with others, to edit 
a more detailed and voluminous work, ‘The Natural History of 
the Zineina’? 
To avoid misconception, it is however necessary to remark that 
the present volume does not—cannot contain descriptions of add 
the British Zineina ; the number of these is increasing upon us 
daily; all that has therefore been accomplished has been to de- 
scribe all the known and distinguished species; the latter expres- 
sion is used advisedly, for it frequently happens that a so-called 
new species is not really new, having lain dormant in our collec- 
tions for years, but mixed with some other species, from which 
we have only at length learnt to distinguish it. Consequently, 
in addition to the new species that will be met with in the course 
of a few years, it may be also found that many of the species of 
this volume are little groups of species, which further investiga- 
tions will enable us to separate; and as the transformations of 
many species not now known to us will be discovered, this volume 
will gradually fall in arrear of the progressive science, and a new 
edition will become requisite. 
