1910] The Ottawa Naturalist. 107 



1880, Mr. Grote, Can. Ent. XII, 187, definitely referred the name 

 as identical with pitychrous , and so it has stood without definite 

 question since. 



In 1890, in my Revision of the Agrotids, I pointed out the 

 difference between the pitychrous and personata forms without 

 questioning their distinctness, and in my catalogue of 1893, I 

 specified the collections where the types were to be found. In 

 the Lintner Collection was that of pityhrous, and in the Tepper 

 collection that of personata. 



Recently, Mr. Arthur Gibson, of the Experimental Farm, 

 Ottawa, Ontario, wrote me concerning deter sa, now referred to 

 Euxoa, questioning whether there were not actually two very 

 distinct species involved. At my request he sent me his material 

 for study and with m.y own this gives me 49 examples, readily 

 enough divisible into two series, representing two good species. 



Euxoa Detersa Wlk. Of this species I have 17 males 

 and 16 females, in good condition. It is a common species along 

 the shore in New York and New Jersey, found throughout 

 September on the flowers of golden rod, in open sunlight. I 

 have taken dozens of specimens in a single afternoon and scarcely 

 two of them alike. The ground color of primaries is a very pale 

 luteous, almost whitish in some specimens, and the variation is to 

 a reddish gray, more or less suffused with smoky, until the entire 

 wing becomes smoky. The females are darker throughout than 

 the males, and tend to becom.e splotchy or mottled. 



Taking a good series as a whole, the general resemblance of 

 the quadri-dentata type of maculation is obvious. There is a 

 pale longitudinal shade in the sub-median interspace beyond 

 the claviform; the median vein is pale or white-marked; the 

 s.t. space is paler and outwardly indented on veins 3 and 4, and 

 these veins are usually a little emphasized by pale shadings or 

 rayed. The median lines tend to obsolescence, the t.p. usually 

 rigid, and there is rarely even a trace of a median shade. The 

 ordinary spots are paler than the surrounding space, sometimes 

 contrastingly so; the orbicular varies much in size and form, the 

 reniform is rather narrow kidney-shaped, and tends to a little 

 constriction from the outer side. 



There is scarcely a feature in this maculation that does not 

 vary to some extent and there are few specimens in which all 

 the features are as described ; but that is the general impression 

 given by a series, and which can be traced in the vast majority of 

 all examples that come under inspection. The range of expanse 

 is from 28 to 35 mm. in the series before me, and exceptional 

 examples will reach H inches or 37 mm. The average example 

 is about 31-32 mm. in expanse. 



