A REVISION OF THE AMERICAN MOTHS OF THE FAMILY GELECHIID.E, WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES. B}^ August Busck, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Since Dr. C. V. Riley's I^ist of Tineina^ nothing has been published on thi.s group in America except isolated descriptions of single species and their life histories. Dr. Riley followed the classification generally in use at that time, founded on Stainton's and lieinemann'.s works, although Edward Mey-rick' previoush" had published his masterly rearrangement of the group based on natural evolutionary lines, a work which, as Lord Walsingham has said,^ after the fuller exploitation of the system in the Handbook of British Lepidoptera, "marks an epoch in the study of these insects.""-Since then the views of Meyrick have been generally adopted and great strides have been made by European specialists in the study of these insects. A much more satisfactory appreciation of the value and relatioUiship of the genera and families now prevails than was formerly the case. The following arrangement of the American Gelechiidse consists in the application to the American fauna of the results of these advanced studies. In this work I have been greatl}' assisted ))y Mr. Edward Meyrick. Numerous concrete questions have been made clear for me by his valu-able assistance, which he has most liberal I3' and untiring!}" extended. Much kind help also has been received from Lord Walsingham and Mr. John Hartley Durrant, whose large collections and intimate knowledge of the iVmerican forms mad(^ their aid particularly valual^le. Without the previous work and the liberal help and encouragement from these authorities in England my task would have been much more difficult, if not an impossible one. As a basis for this paper I have examined all the authentic material of former workers which is still in existence on this side of the Atlantic, too-ether with much new material. In J. B. Smith's List Lep. Bor. Am., 1891. ^^rans. Ent. Soc, London, 1883. ='Proc. Zool. Soc, London, 1897. Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXV— No. 1304. 767
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