242 
CHRYSOZANA; BOENASA; METALLOSIA. By Dr. M. Draudt. 
colouring and marking of the Lithosiinae to be far more similar to that of other groups, than we find it in 
Europe, Asia or Australia. 
About the early stages of American Lithosiinae we as yet know very little; but just this ignorance makes 
us presume that they behave like their palearctic allies, feeding on lichens and keeping hidden on trunks and 
in fissures of stones. 
The frailty and delicate bodily condition of nearly all the Lithosiidae prevents them from being able 
to fly across big oceans. Thus America has not one single Lithosia in common with the other continents, and 
among the 250 genera there are even only few that have representatives on both hemispheres. 
Also with respect to the imagines our knowledge of the American Lithosiinae is very deficient; nearly 
half of all the species known have been only published in the two last decades, and this gives us an idea of 
the great number of forms unknown to us, which may yet be discovered in the vast forests of South America. 
The Lithosiinae are mostly not common, often even very rare and besides lead a very obscure life. The larvae 
very rarely appear; owing to their insignificant exterior and their feeding from lichens nobody has yet been 
induced to breed them on a large scale. Nor are they easy to handle in the collections; their delicacy and mostly 
very brittle scaling make their preservation and preparation very bothersome. Their scientific operation likewise 
offers great difficulties already stated above by the fact that a very great part of the species could not be com¬ 
bined to one genus with another species. It is G. H amp son’s desert to have completed and rendered more scientific 
the Catalogue of the American Lithosiinae which has been very incomplete at Kirby’s times — by his fundamental 
,,Lepidoptera Phalaenae of the British Museum“. We therefore follow this commendable work, though in 
about the reverse order, so as to agree with the treatises of the same groups in the Inclo-Australian (Vol. X) 
and palearctic (Vol. II) faunae, which are arranged according to the Catalogue of Staudinger-Rebel. Numerous 
figures of species, of which only one specimen has become known, have been copied from Hampson’s work. 
1. Genus: Chpysoxaua Hmps. 
Proboscis well developed; the short palpi porrect; shaft of antenna somewhat thickened, in the q 
covered with ciliary pencils. On the forewing the upper median vein proceeds from below the cell-corner, from 
which the lower radial vein originates; the two upper ones rise in common from the middle of the transverse 
vein; the second lowest subcostal vein is absent, the uppermost anastomoses with the costal. Veins on the 
hind wing greatly simplified: the upper median and lower radial vein coincide, the middle radial is absent alto¬ 
gether, the upper radial is petioled with the subcostal. The whole distal half of the hindwing is beneath in the 
covered with rough scent-scales. The genus contains only 1 small species. 
croesus. C. croesus Hmps. (33 g) is golden on the thorax and forewing, with a black margin; hindwings 
carmine with a black marginal band; abdomen orange, above red. in the 2 with a black apex. Expanse of 
Avings: 20 mm. Bolivia. 
2. Genus: Wkr. 
It contains only one most peculiar, small animal, the hindwing being stunted to a small triangular 
rudiment hidden below the base of the proximal margin of the foreAving; instead of it the Avhole inner-marginal 
part is so very much developed that it assumes — Avithout veins -— the function of a normally sized hindwing; 
the latter, for this purpose, is turned over in such a Avay that the original under surface becomes the upper 
surface, so that its proximal margin has become the functional costal margin. The forewing is otherwise like 
in the preceding genus, though the tAvo upper radial veins are separated; the loAvest subcostal vein rises yet 
beloAv the cell-angle, the two next ones are petioled. The palpi are longer and more slender than in Chrysozana. 
n'ujrorosea. B. nigrorosea Wkr. (33 f). Anterior body and forewing blackish-brown AA r ith an oblique red antemarginal 
band, a red cliscal spot and small stripes at the base of the proximal margin. Abdomen and hindAvings red, 
the latter with dark fringes. Expanse of AA’ings: 26 mm. Hayti. 
3. Genus: Metstllosia Hmps. 
Similar as Chrysozana, but with long-haired posterior tibiae and two first joints of the tarsi. The proxi¬ 
mal angle of the hindwing is extended to a lobe, and long and thickly haired. 
chrysotis. M. chrysotis Hmps. (33 f) is golden on the anterior body, with a bronze-green head, collar and shoulder- 
covers. Abdomen red with a broAvn anal tuft and orange lateral tufts. Forewings brown, with golden scales; 
hindwings carmine with a black apical spot and orange inner-angular fringes. Expanse of Avings: 16 mm. Brazil. 
miens. M. nitens Schs. is broAvn on its body and forewings, suffused with a metallic green, the hindwings 
being unicolorously brown. Expanse of wings: 20 mm. Costa Rica. 
