NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 215 



its larval history, I will describe the species in my collection, and extract M. 

 Guenee's description of the other. The first species may be easily recognised 

 by means of Guenee's very good figure, and as a generic diagnosis would not 

 facilitate recognition, particularly without the means of reducing it from a 

 general to a special group, I will omit any generic description. 



D. acutaria. Herr. Sch. Sup., p. 74, f. 447. Guene'e Uranides and 

 Phalinites, Suites a Buffon, x. 233, pi. 17, f. 6. 



The appearance of the imago is somewhat crambiform. The fore wings pale 

 ochreous, tinted with dark luteous (with clear grayish violet, Gn.) along sub- 

 costal nervure and its marginal branches, and with a rather broad blackish 

 streak beneath the median nervure, extended from the base and curving be- 

 hind upwards toward the tip, bordered on the costal side by a silvery line, 

 and one of the same hue behind, along the curved portion. In the disk are 

 two blackish dots, one on the discal nervure and the other about the middle 

 of the disk. Hind wings ochreous white. Guenee's sp. from Ga.; mine from 

 Mass. Col. of Dr. Chas. Girard. 



D. s pad aria. Gn. x. p. 234. : ' Very near the preceding, but larger, 

 with the wings more oblong. The superior wings are more acute, and the 

 terminal border perfectly straight. Their color is darker, grayer, with the 

 designs finer and less distinct. The inferior are more developed and more 

 oblong ; they have the internal angle and part of the side tinted with blackish 

 gray. The abdomen is perceptibly longer, and the antennae also proportiona- 

 lly longer and slenderer." 



In his generic diagnosis, M. Guenee says of the abdomen, " ddpassant beau- 

 coup les ailes infer ieures, ' ' whereas in my specimens of a c u t a r i a , the abdomen 

 exactly equals the length of the hind wings, when the wings are folded. He 

 refers, doubtless, to the expanded wings. 



PYRALID2E. 

 Desmia Westwood. 



This is one of the few genera in M. Guenee's family Asopidae, of his division 

 Pyralites, the males in which are characterized by nodosities or curvatures of 

 the antennae. As Guenee, at the time of writing his volume on Deltoides and 

 Pyralites, had not seen the males of this genus, and his description, in the 

 general remarks on the genus, does not accurately represent their structure, 

 I will describe these organs in the male, of which I have several specimens. 

 In noticing the singular conformation of the male antenna?, he says: " sont 

 d'abord renflees en niassue, puis etranglees et munies d'un gros article ovo'ide, 

 puis enfin greles et ciliees jusqu' an sommet." 



About the middle of the antennal stalk, is placed a transverse, nearly ver- 

 tical plate, which on the external side has a triangular elevation, and adjoin- 

 ing this, toward the base, is a narrow tuft of obliquely placed scales, running 

 along the upper surface of the stalk. Toward the apex of the organ, immedi- 

 ately following this protuberance, one-half of the stalk is excised from above 

 and slightly tufted internally. There is no thickening of the stalk except at 

 the protuberance, and beneath it is microscopically pubescent from the base 

 to the tip. 



D. maculalis. West. Mag. Zool., 1831, pi. 2, Guenee, vol. viii. 189. 

 Blackish brown. Labial palpi blackish brown, while beneath. Fore wings 

 with an irregularly oval white spot placed partly on the middle of the disk, 

 the median nervure and the fold ; another of the same hue and nearly round, 

 en the base of the nervules behind the disk. Hind wings with a single, discal 

 white spot. Abdomen with a white band at the base, a dorsal spot on the 

 middle, and a short white dorsal streak at the tip. 



Mass. and 111. Col. of Messrs. Scudder and Kennicott. 



I860.] 



