"Ocelli present. Antennæ 2/3, in male moderately bi-pectinated throughout. Labial palpi rudimentary, hairy. Abdomen densely hairy. Fore-wings with veins 4 and 5 short-stalked, 7 and 8 out of 9. Hind-wings with veins 4 and 5 stalked, parting-vein well defined, 8 connected by bar with cell beyond middle, and additional vein (9) rising out of 8 before bar."
(_Psyche unicolor_, Butl., Proc. Zool. Soc., London, 1877, 381. _Orophora toumatou_, Fereday, Trans. N. Z. Inst. x. 262, pl. ix. _Orophora unicolor_, Meyr., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xxii. 212.)
This odd-looking little insect has been found by Mr. Fereday, at Rakaia.
The expansion of the wings is hardly 1 inch. _All the wings are rather broad, rounded, and very sparsely covered with dusky brown hair-like scales_; the body is very hairy, and the antennæ are slightly bi-pectinated. The female is apterous.
The life-history is thus described by Mr. Fereday: "I have never seen the larva. Its case measures in length about 16 lines (1-3/8 inches); the exterior is covered with pieces of stems of grass from a line to 5 lines in length, laid longitudinally and in the manner of thatch; the interior is thinly lined with fine silk. The cases are found fixed to the twigs of the Wild Irishman (_Discaria toumatou_), but it may be inferred from the covering of the case, that it probably does not feed on the shrub but upon the tussock grass, generally growing where the shrub is found. It is some years since I found the cases on _Discaria toumatou_, growing in the river-beds of the Rakaia and Waimakariri, on the Canterbury Plains, and I did not find any case in its earlier stage before the larva had fed up and changed into the pupa state."[67]
All Mr. Fereday's specimens were bred from the cases, and to the best of my belief no one has ever observed the insect on the wing. It is evidently a very scarce species, and is probably restricted to a few river-beds in the South Island.
The following are the principal characters of the _Micropterygina_:--
"Fore-wings with an oblique membranous dorsal process (jugum) near base, forming with the dorsal margin a notch or sinus, which receives the costa of the hind-wings. Hind-wings without frenulum, 1_c_ present, with 11 or more veins, neuration essentially, almost or quite identical with that of fore-wings. Fore-wings and hind-wings more than usually remote at origin.