33 
SJS™? a V1S l fc t0 f ta . y ,’ a new s P ecies of 0 paste,,a which he names 
hnnrTnfV'T a fe r m !v e near Lake A S nano > in ^e neighbour- 
ood of Naples. In the Latin diagnosis he writes“ Alis anteriori- 
us latiusculis, nitidis albis, Jiavido sufusis " = anterior wings rather 
broader, shining white suffused with yello.e. In the German descrip- 
rl° n > which foUows, he says, “Most nearly allied to Opaste,,a sultana. 
lead and thorax yellow instead of silver white. The forewings are 
somewhat broader, their white colour is very thinly suffused with yellow', 
east of all on the costa. In the middle of the wing is a cloudy 
brownish spot, without any sharp margin ; near the base under the fold 
essential 1 fff hade ' bre ? dth of the wings appears to be the most 
essential difference. I he colour may he individual or climatic.” 
Ihis is the earliest description we have of sufusella, and it seems 
quite clear that Zeller had in his mind, when he named the species, 
not the cloudy patches on the forewings but the yellow tint suffused 
over the whole insect. The words flavido sufusis are sufficiently dis¬ 
tinctive. This form then, in which the head, thorax, and fore wings 
aie suffused with yellow, becomes the type of the species. It must, I 
think, be a rather uncommon form, as it is not often mentioned in 
descriptions of the species. Heinemann says (Schm. Deutsch., Tineina 
p. /08), More rarely suffused with yellow.” 
I suggest, by way of convenience, calling the prevalent white form 
vanety nebulella, in allusion to the dark grey clouds on the forewin^s 
which are, of course more conspicuous on a white than on a yellow’ 
ground. J 
In the \ Lvnnaea Entomoloyica for 1848 (pp. 264-272), Zeller, havum 
recognised that his two species which he had previously described as 
belonging to the genus Opaste,,a had, in reality, little in common with 
that genus, founded his genus Phyllocnistis, characterising it by the 
smooth head, small eyecaps, rather short wings, presence of labial 
palpi and the venation, which, by the way, is very different from that 
ot Oposteya In the new genus he placed the two species saltyna and 
stiff ttsella. Under salty na he declares that he had previously—in the 
Ists, 1839—confused two species under this name, but now he sepa¬ 
rates out the willow-frequenting species, describing its chief characters 
the narrower wings and the pair of darker longitudinal streaks from 
the base along the centre of the forewing. For this he retains the 
name saliyna, which, he says, is in itself sufficient to show of what 
species he was thinking when he first described it. 
In describing the poplar species, Zeller ignores his own description 
ot stiff ttsella, published, as we have seen, in the Isis for 1847 and 
brings forward as the type a form in which the cloudy patches of the 
forewings are absent. In this description he adds two varieties; the 
first he calls the common variety h., and characterises it as having a 
suffused spot on the disc of the wing, and in well-marked specimens 
a second one behind the transverse fascia, and a third at the base. 
This var. b. is, then, the common form, with fuscous clouds, which I 
call nebulella. The second, var. c., Zeller diagnoses as alis'ant. fta- 
vescenti-sufusis, and states that he took a single specimen at the Agnano 
lake. This, then, is the above-mentioned yellow form, which° as I 
have shown, is the earliest described form of P. sufusella, and’must 
therefore be the type. The cloudless form, which 'Zeller ’made here 
his type, is, 52 years afterwards, successfully claimed by Liiders as a 
