730 
PSYCHIDAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
The statements made in Vol. XIV (p. 481) about the rare occurrence of the imagines of the African 
Psychidae in contrast with the frequency of the larval sacs, are also applicable to' the Indo-Australian fauna 
in all respects. This disproportion is partly due to the insignificance of the imagines which very easily escape 
notice, especially because they often keep hidden on the ground. Moreover, the swarming time of the is 
frequently very early in the morning, often yet at night or in the early twilight, a most unusual time for 
collectors. This hour of flight mostly suffices for accomplishing the copulation after which the die im¬ 
mediately; in Vol. XIV (p. 481) we mentioned the statemend by Standfuss, according to which a Psychic!^ 
having copulated twice scarcely survived another hour. This hour of life being frequently at a time wdien little 
is collected or nothing at all, it is a matter of course that such ephemerous beings are rarely discovered. 
Moreover, we must also take into consideration that, in spite of their protective cover, the Psychidae 
are very much infested by parasites. Of 38 sacs of the New Zealand Liothula omnivora Per ., which were of a 
finger’s length, G. V. Hudson obtained only 1 £ imago; no fewer than 26 sacs yielded parasites, 8 were dead, 
2 contained eggs, 1 a $ imago, and only 1 serviceable $ was gained from this whole collection of pupae. The 
pricked larvae yielded in this case a dipterous species, Eurygaster marginatus, which however is opposed again 
by a hyperparasite, a small Pteromaline, which propagates considerably faster than the fly *) and thereby 
prevents it from exterminating the lepidopteron. 
Finally we must remark that the abandoned sacs do not decay very quickly and that for this reason 
by no means all those seen hanging are inhabited by live insects. The sacs of many very small species of the 
European Psychidae are spun on to blades of grass or quite loosely to feeble stalks of plants, decaying at the 
same time when these plants dry and fall off. This however is mostly not the case in the large Indo-Australians. 
A large $ sac of Metura elongata Sndrs. which I found already abandoned under my window-sill showed hardly 
any traces of decay after nearly half a year. Thus it is also for this reason risky in many species to infer the 
number of existing individuals from the number of larval sacs hanging about. 
As to the life-habits of the larvae, the most important facts have been stated already in Vol. II; they 
are almost exactly the same in nearly all the species known. As the females remain in the sacs and are thus 
spun fast, the care for geographical distribution is left exclusively to the larva. Thus its capability of wandering 
is also very great, and especially the first hours after having crept out of the egg are used by the members of 
a hatch, which may often number 500—1000, for dispersing from their birth-place to all directions; sometimes 
they even start constructing their cases only two or three days after their birth, presumably for enabling the 
young breed to swarm out yet easily without being hindered by the load of the sac. 
The organization of the Psychidae is so very primitive, even in the imago, that it is not quite easy to 
set up a satisfactory systematical order of the family. Above we have already pointed out the difficulties of 
delimitation and we need merely to add that the genera dealt with here were opposed as Macropsychinae 
(Tutt) to the Mesopsychinae (Dalla-Torre) and Micropsycliinae (Tutt), the latter of which are very justly 
referred to the Microlepidoptera. The Macropsychinae are again divided into several subordinate groups which 
are partly accounted as subfamilies; as for instance the Moffatiinae [Strand] (cf. Vol. II, p. 369). the Luffiinae 
(Dalla-Torre), the Fumeinae (Rebel), the Epichnopteryginae (Rebel), the Stichobasinae (Dalla-Torre & 
Strand), the Oiketicoidinae (Dalla-Torre & Strand), the Psychinae (Rebel), the Oiketicinae (Dalla-Torre); 
and these subfamilies are again subdivided into tribes and subordinate tribes. This shows explicitly that the 
Psychidae being so very similar in their exterior differ in characteristic features that are regarded as especially 
pronounced marks of distinction in other insect families. Moreover, several genera have been also split into 
subgenera. 
Owing to the great resemblance in structure, the mostly thin scaling and the faded, generally quite 
monotonous colouring of the body and wings, illustrations of this lepidopteral family are only of secondary 
importance. 
Family: Psychidae. 
By M. Gaede. 
The order of groups and genera applied here in correspondence with more recent works is somewhat 
different from that in Vol. II. We have already mentioned that we may expect quite an increase of species 
for the Indo-Australian Psychid fauna, but on the other hand many species will probably have to be with¬ 
drawn, because frequently a very tiny difference in the neuration has been used as a mark of distinction of a 
species, whilst it may lie only a certain variability. 
*) From a single pupa of the parasitic fly no fewer than 18 of such small wasps developed. 
