84 
ANNALS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 
Eam. lasiocampxme. 
Moths usually of rather large size and heavy build, with thorax, 
abdomen, and legs densely hairy. Tongue absent. Palpi well 
developed, often long, with dense hairs. Antennae pectinated to 
apex in both sexes. Forewings with lc absent, la and lb coincident 
(not furcate at base), 5 approximated at origin to 4, 6 and 7 connate 
or stalked from upper angle of cell, 9 and 10 stalked. Hind wings 
with frenulum and retinaculum obsolete ; a strong costal expansion 
at base ; lc absent, 7 from costal edge of cell, 8 closely approxi- 
mated or anastomosing with 7, or with cell, or connected by a bar 
with 7, so forming a precostal cell, usually with one or more costal 
veinlets running from precostal cell into basal costal expansion. 
Though not of very high organisation, this family is special- 
ised in several respects, so as to be sharply denned and easily 
recognised. The peculiarities in the hindwing, which are of import- 
ance in generic classification, are a consequence of the absence 
of a frenulum and presence of a large costal expansion, which 
in moths of their heavy build has rendered adaptations towards 
strengthening this part of the wing a physiological necessity. The 
costal veinlets (or pseudoneuria) may be irregularly bifid or trifid 
towards apex ; they are not otherwise very variable, as has been 
stated, at least in the Australian genera. I consider the single 
basal costal veinlet, with auastomosis of 7 with 8 near base, as the 
most primitive condition. With the elongation of the precostal 
cell a second veinlet is developed, and the basal veinlet may either 
persist or become obsolete. Faint indications of additional veinlets 
may occasionally be detected, but I have not met with more than 
two fully developed in the Australian genera. The large precostal 
cell met with in Perna and in extra-Australian genera I consider to 
be a later modification, the bar between 7 and 8 representing an 
anastomosis which has been gradually drawn out (the initial step is 
occasionally seen as an individual abnormality), and not an extra 
vein. 
The following table does not pretend to be based on a complete 
revision of the Australian genera and species, but as a preliminary 
attempt will, I hope, prove useful. 
