INSECTS OF SAMOA 



HETEROCERA 



Paet III Fasc. 4 



(Exclusive of Geometrldae and the Microlepidoptera.) 



By W. H. T. Tams. 



(With 12 Text-figures, and 13 Plates.) 



Introduction 



The importance of the collection which led to the preparation of this report 

 may be gauged from the fact that it has more than trebled the number of Samoan 

 species represented in the British Museum. Prior to its receipt the Museum 

 collections contained examples of just over sixty species from Samoa ; the 

 number here recorded is 237. Of these, 182 figure in Buxton and Hopkins' 

 collections, and 66 proved to be new species or subspecies. 



The generic classification in the Heterocera is in a very unstable condition, 

 and would make any attempt at an analysis of the distribution based on genera 

 a waste of time. Although I have revived one or two old generic names, this has 

 been done purely for the sake of convenience, until proper investigations can be 

 carried out in the cases of heterogeneous assemblages of species such as are at 

 present included in Anomis (Cosmophila, Rusicada, Tiridata, etc.), and Mar- 

 garonia (Chloauges, Paradosis, Sisyrofhora, Dysallacta, etc.). At the same time, 

 I have been unable to assign five species to already described genera, and have 

 been compelled to erect new genera for these. 



It need hardly be said that the selection of the proper generic and trivial 

 names for insects frequently takes more time than the actual classification. 

 In the past it has been necessary in working out the nomenclature of a genus to 

 steer a way through a mass of the older literature in order to avoid many generic 

 names proposed without an actual description or definition, and only limited 

 by their restriction to a stated number of species. So many zoologists have 



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