482 
PSYCHIDAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
of microlepidoptera which have chiefly grown out of this artificial lepidopteral division only by their size, we 
may say to-day that the Psychidae are more related with the “Micros” than with the Bombycid families com¬ 
monly denoted as ,,Macrolepidoptera”, near to which they are often placed. 
The Psychidae being such an old lepidopteral family it is easily understood that their species could 
deviate far from one another and are strictly separated from one another. This has also influenced svstematics, 
so that we find great differences among both the species and genera in spite of their primitive structure, lack 
of colours, and monotonousness of the exterior and habits. These circumstances have induced the systematizers 
to express the uncommonly great disparities by separating a great number of species into subgenera; moreover, 
the differences of many genera are so great that the family was divided into several subfamilies six of which 
have already been characterized in Vol. 2 and to which some genera have been so loosely added that they may 
also be appended to other subfamilies. It is a matter of course that in this classification of the species into 
subgenera and of the genera into subfamilies the different authors were not of the same point of view. In 
addition, it has grown a habit of late to re-denominate the groups, so that it is rather difficult to get a clear 
survey of the Psychidae. Some authors denote as Psychinae the group which is called Leptogyrinae by others 
who denote as Psychinae those lepidoptera that are named Oiketicinae (or even Oeceticinae) by other authors. 
Besides there are yet the above mentioned difficulties in classifying the family itself. 
The Psychidae number among the most monotonously coloured lepidopteral families, and they exhibit 
hardly any remarkable deviations in the exterior shape of the wings. On the contrary, in spite of the enormous 
geographical distribution of the family, they are most homogeneous throughout the world. In very many cases 
w r e meet with almost colourless hyaline wings; nearly just as plain and homogeneous is the perfect sameness 
of colour, since the body, antennae, legs, and wings exhibit the very same colouring. In some cases the forewdngs 
of the males are somewhat more variably coloured, yet the geographically remotest species show- the very same 
scheme of this colouring; for instance, the colouring of the South-American Oiketicus geyeri recurs again in 
Japan in a somewhat smaller form, and in the Ethiopian Oik. angulatus (72 h) in a somewhat more indistinct 
form. The image of the Eumeta -EE frequently seems to be merely a modification of these lepidoptera, so that 
it would be in no family so easy as in this to trace the images of the species composing it back to one another. 
The Ethiopian Psychidae, however, excel those of other countries in their peculiar resemblance to the colourings 
of other Ethiopian Heterocera belonging to other lepidopteral families. So for instance, Monda delicatissima 
(72 i) looks like a small Marbla hemileuca (21 d), Monda stupida (72 i) like a small Marbla divisa (22 i), and 
Monda rogenhoferi (72 i) somewhat like a ting Marbloides paradoxa (22 i); but we must consider that these are 
plain black and white colourings recurring in many Noctuid families, so that it is only remarkable that also the 
otherwise quite neutral Psychidae in Africa exhibit the general uniformity customary there. 
There is very little known about the habits of the Ethiopian Psychidae , and in Vol. II (1. c.) we have 
given a general statement of them. Besides we may mention the formation of sacs, combining a remarkably 
general constancy with an equally remarkable specific variability. The larvae of the genus Olania construct 
their larval casings in an almost quite homogeneous way, fastening strong, straight pieces of twigs together 
with their longitudinal sides, so that the sac looks like an artificially piled up bundle of wood. One of the pieces 
of wood being the longest in the female sacs is spun over in such a way that the far projecting end forms a 
resting place for the male flying there for the copulation, from which seat it may undertake the very complicated 
copulation (see below ). r l his contrivance we find in the African Clania moddermanni as well as in the South- 
Australian Cl. (Entometa) ignobilis. Moreover, the larva of the Australian Thyridopteryx hiibneri, according 
to the deposit of eggs, sometimes uses foliage and sometimes needle-leaves for its food, and accordingly forms 
sacs either of parallel rows of needle-leaves in the shape of small tufts of grass, or of pieces of leaves which are 
spun together, so that they resemble a bundle of leaves. In spite of this entire exterior difference of the casings 
it is easy to ascertain that it is only the m a t e r i a 1 , much less the structure, which effects the total dissimi¬ 
larity among the sacs of the same kind of larvae. How very strictly the same structure is adhered to was experi¬ 
mentally ascertained by withholding the timber for the sac to a large Australian Psychida; as there were only 
cherry-stalks lying about, the larva constructed a casing of a very abnormal appearance out of this quite 
uncommon material; the casing, nevertheless, showed the very same structure as the other cases of these larvae 
made of pieces of Eucalyptus-wood. 
As to the copulation itself, two opinions had been opposed to each other for a long time. The male 
Psychic! larva was known to turn round in its sac almost invariably before the pupation (according to vox 
Luststow with the exception of Apterona helix) so that the pupa lies with its head-end in the posterior end of 
the sac and discharges from the latter the emerging imago; the female pupa, however, w r as supposed to turn 
round only in some species (e. g. most of the European ones), whilst in the large species (according to Frogatt, 
for instance, in the Australian Oiketicus) the female pupa was to lie with its head turned in front and with its 
anal end towards the open end of the sac. This assumption has also been discussed in Vol. II, p. 352, and it 
