54 lOBD WALSINGHAM ON [JaU. 19, 4. Revision of the West-Indian Micro-Lepidoptera, witli Descriptions of new Species. By the Rt. Hon. Lord Walsixgham, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. [Received November b, 1896.] About two years ago I received a communication from Baron W. von Hedemann asking me to examine and determine a col-lection of Micro-Lepidoptera which be had made in the Danish West Indies. Although at first very unwilling to undertake the task, anticipating, not without reason, that there would be a large amount of new material, and that it would involve a very diffi-cult study of the synonymy of described species aud of general classification, I felt that such a study must necessarily be very instructive, aud that the opportunity should not be lost to enlarge my limited acquaintance with the West-Indian fauna. Moreover, as the Danish Islands lie to the north of those which supplied the material for my previous paper [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1891, pp. 492-549 (1892)], they promised to afford some connecting links with the rich fauna of Xorth America, already somewhat known to me. As to the instruction to be derived, and as to the difficulty of the work undertaken, my calculations were not at fault ; moreover, the rediscovery of Clemens's genus Cyclo^jlasis, with some other decidedly Xorth-American forms, has been of special interest in connexion with the subject of distribution. The amount of material to be dealt with was largely increased by the reception of a further collection from the same islands made by Mr. Y. Gudmann. These, together with the Micros collected by Mr. H. H. Smith in Grenada (from the Godman aud Salvin collection), and others received from Dr. Eendall, Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell, Mr. W. Schaus, Mr. T. W. I>ich, and the late Monsieur E. Eagonot, form the materials of this paper. It is in fact a second edition of the former one, bringing the West-Indian catalogue of Micro-Lepidoptera up to date, on the lines of the new system of classification put forward by Mr. E. Meyrick in his* ' Handbook of British Lepidoptera,' which marks an epoch in the study of these small and often obscure forms. When the paper was commenced I was working upon the old hnes, with such modifications oulj' as had become obviously necessary as the general study of the subject has advanced ; but the pubhcation of Mr. Mevrick's book supplied a want, and his system seemed to be so near at least to that which I was abeady working up to by an independent course of study and reasoning, that no effort was required to induce me to accept in the main his sequence of the different famihes aud genera ; this has been adopted so far as possible, with the one notable exception of the position and value of the Tortricidce, which cannot, in my opinion, be rightly separated from the Tineina, and should take a place
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