1880. J 
39 
OCCURRENCE OF THE NEUROPTEROUS GENUS DILAIi IN SOUTH 
AMERICA. 
BY R. McLACIILAN, F.R.S., &c. 
I have for some time had in my collection an insect belonging to 
the singular genus of JSfeuroptera-Planipennia first made known by 
Rambur under the term Dilar, taken by the Bev. T. A. Preston in the 
neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro in November, 1872. As this genus is 
altogether new for the South American Fauna, its occurrence in that 
Continent is an interesting fact in Geographical Distribution, and it 
is well that its representative there should be characterized. 
Dilar Prestoint, n. sp. 
Body blackish-fuscous, varied with testaceous or yellowish. On the disc of the 
head, above, are two very large median, sub-contiguous, rounded elevated tubercles, 
placed somewhat obliquely, and in front of these a single still larger, somewhat 
conical tubercle •* on the sides of the disc, toward the eyes, the head is de- 
pressed and excavated. Antennse dirty whitish, the short stout basal joint and the 
second somewhat testaceous : the succeeding joints (up to the 9th, the rest broken 
off) are slightly longer than broad, each with a dusky ring at its apex ; the third has 
a short branch, all the others a long, stout, straight branch, somewhat dusky, and rather 
pubescent, gradually increasing in length, so that the branch of the 9tli joint is 
seven or eight times the length of the joint itself, and that of those preceding only 
slightly shorter. Palpi and legs pale yellowish-white, the latter strongly pubescent. 
Abdomen very obtuse (the anal parts not capable of definition). Wings pale 
whitish-hyaline, slightly iridescent, densely and transversely reticulated or chequered 
with pale grey markings ; neuration fuscescent, with long blackish hairs : in the 
anterior-wings the first four or five costal nervules are simple, afterwards a forked 
nervule and a simple one alternate, and there is a marginal rudiment between each 
and in each of the forks ; principal sector 6-branched, the branches furcate or bi- 
furcate, and each branch also ends in a minute marginal fork with the usual inter- 
mediate marginal rudiments ; two nervules between the sector and the radius, the 
other transverse nervules very few in number ; a dusky horny point between the 
first and second branches of the sector : in the posterior-wings t he neuration is 
similar in arrangement ; the sector is 6-branched, but the branches have mostly onlv 
the minute marginal fork. 
d- Length of body, about 2^- mm. Expanse, 101 mm. 
Remarkable for its very small size as compared with the species 
of the Old World ; but it appears to be absolutely congeneric, differing 
only in the lesser number of transverse nervules in the wings. It de- 
ceptively resembles the species of a group of European Psychidco. 
Lewisham, London : May, 1880. 
* Those protuberances were mistaken by Eambur for ocelli, an error duly pointed out by 
Hagen in the Stott, ent. Zeitung, I860, p. 292. 
