Bulletin - United States National Museum

252 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 257
larger dots in an elongate lozenge at about 1/4, median pair slightly
outwards-oblique, posterior dot slightly more distant, submedian
above middle; four dots forming ahnost a quadrate before apex, slightly
inwards-oblique, lower dot largest, shifted more basad; a point in
tornus. Cilia concolorous.
Hindwing in male dull light ochreous yellow, paler than forewing.
Cilia concolorous, glossy; in female of the same color, but with a
central large patch of brownish suffusion, from beyond base to halfway
beyond cell.
Male genitalia: Very close to those of A. platycypha. Uncus halves
more slender, less sinuate, basal part and median thickening narrower.
Halves of the gnathos plate more rounded. Valva with cucullus
processes shorter, especially the dorsal process. Base of sacculus
with a longer process.
Female genitalia: Seventh segment moderately sclerotized. Eighth
segment shaped as an extremely heavy, inverted V, arms internally
open, their tops obUquely truncate; anapophyses dilated and united
with the dorsal side of the arms of the V. Ostium bursae, a small
opening at the base of the V. Postapophyses slender, moderate.
Lobus analis very large, floricomous, with a sclerotized edge. Ductus
bursae tortuous, extremely long, corpus bursae moderate, ovoid.
Signum depressed- triangular, dentate.
Ethmia Hiibner, 1822
Ethmia Hiibner, 1822, Verzeichniss bekannter Schmettlinge, p. 163.
Type species: Psecadia pyrausta Pallas, 1771 (Europe).
The following species of Ethmia are aptly characterized by Meyrick
(1905, p. 289): ". . . species, belonging to a puzzling group of which the
members are extremely similar. . .
." Starting in 1910 he described
a series of new Ethmia species from the Indo-Australian region,
around Walker's classical species, E. hilarella. These species were
described after a single or a couple of specimens, using minor differences
of markings of the wings. Although the descriptions are lucid
and credit should be given to Meyrick's sagacity, longer series of
additional material show that the minute differences of markings
indicated by him disappear entirely within the range of specific
variation, and that the only means of discriminating the species with
certainty are, again, the genital characters.
The male genitalia of this genus present excellent specific characters,
yet they are built very much to the same plan. Uncus usually is
strongly developed and bifid. Gnathos of the complicated subscaphium
type, usually a more or less dentate plate supporting tuba
analis, sometimes extended downward as a vertical plate and joined