THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 25 



NOTES ON TYPES OF LEPIDOPTERA IN SNOW 



COLLECTION. 



BY J. MCDUNNOUGH, PH.D., DECATUR, ILL. 



Through the courtesy of Prof. S.J. Hunter, I recently had the 

 opportunity of examining the t^'pes of Lepidop era contained in 

 the Snow Collection at Lawrence, Kansas, and comparing with 

 them specimens taken with m.e for that purpose. A list of these 

 types is published in the Kansas Univ. Sci.^ Bull., Vol. VIII (1), 

 1913, p. 28, and it is with the purpose of correcting a few errors 

 that have been introduced into this paper as well as offering some 

 synonymic notes on several of the species that I have undertaken 

 this article. 



The types themselves either bear a large printed label "type" 

 or a label "type specimien, discovered by F. H. Snow," with the 

 locality and a red disk pinned below, but unfortunately, with but 

 few exceptions, the actual name of the species is not attached to 

 the specimen, but pinned alongside, as was formerly the case with 

 Walker's types in the British Museum. Up to the present no 

 great harm has been done as the collection remains as arranged 

 by Prof. Snow, but one can readily see what might happen if an 

 energetic but unscientific student were set to rearranging the 

 collection; the few exceptions noted above are mostly in the Geo- 

 metridae and Pyralidee, a number of which bear Grote's written 

 type label. 



In the NoduidcE most of the types are those of species described 

 by Grote from material collected by Prof. Snow in Idaho Springs, 

 Colo., and near Las Vegas Hot Springs, New Mexico, and types of 

 nearly all of these species are stated by Hampson to be in the 

 British Museum and bear Grote's actual type label as I have 

 personally verified. It would seem that whenever Grote received 

 several specimens of one species he retained at least one to which 

 a type label was affixed, but in the case of a unique this was returned 

 to Prof. Snow. In view of this fact, it would be well in my estima- 

 tion to restrict the type to the British Museum specimen wherever 

 we find types stated to be in both collections, and fortunately this 

 will lead to no confusion, as in every such instance the species 

 represented by the two types is undoubtedly a single one. In 



January, 1916. 



