154 



INSECTS OF SAMOA. 



the figures afford a fair index to the numerical strength of the respective sub- 

 families in the district, and probably even in the mountains of New Guinea in 

 general. It appears that, out of 473 new species, 171 (36 per cent.) belong to the 

 Geometrinae, which the author — as in all his papers — distributes amongst 

 several untenable " subfamilies." 



A collection from Dampier I., Vulcan I., and the Admiralty Is. which I 

 analysed for Lord Rothschild when it was received from Meek several years 

 ago, contained representatives of about 140 species, of which only 34 were 

 Boarmiid (between 24 and 25 per cent.). Several of these were common and 

 widely distributed species, such as Cleora infiexaria Snellen and C. decisaria 

 Walker, Eetropis cessaria Walker and E. sabulosa Warren, Catoria delectaria 

 Walker, Semiothisa goramata Rober = S. variegata Warren, Hyposidra talaca 

 Walker, Borbacha euchrysa Lower, Petelia medardaria Herrich-Schaffer, Bulonga 

 griseosericea Pagenstecher and others, though sometimes redeemed from the 

 commonplace by some racial modification. Of outstanding endemic develop- 

 ments there was scarcely a trace. 



When we turn to Samoa, we find only 4 Geometrinae among our 30 

 species, and I doubt whether any other islands of the South Pacific would provide 

 a much higher proportion, though the entirely dissimilar Hawaiian fauna gives 

 the Geometrinae more than a 2 : 1 majority over the Larentiinae, which is 

 the only other Geometrid subfamily found there — the endemic genus Scolorythra 

 and its immediate offshoots having obtained almost undisputed sway. Meyrick's 

 " Descriptions of Lepidoptera from the South Pacific " (Tr. Ent. Soc. Lond., 

 1886, pp. 190-212), out of 29 Geometrids, include only one Geometrine — Boarmia 

 psychastis, of the New Hebrides, apparently a $ ab. of Cleora decisaria— 

 together with a reference to another single from Samoa, " probably the same 

 species," or rather, in the light of present knowledge, No. 28 infra. Nearly 

 every island produces at least one representative of this group, but otherwise 

 I have searched almost in vain, through the collections to which I have access, 

 for Geometrinae. Two genera have, indeed, been erected for single species 

 and call for brief notice here ; but they seem to be offshoots (with $ speciali- 

 sations) of the group last mentioned. 



Cerotricha (type C. licornaria Guen., Tahiti) is perhaps generically separable 

 from Cleora by its more slender build and extremely long antenna, in some 

 measure linking that genus with Scotorythra. But Alcis nausori Bethune-Baker 

 (Proc, Zool. Soc. Lond., 1905, p. 94, t. viii, f. 6, Viti Levu), which has also rather 



