THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 103 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



PROF. J. B. smith's list OF LEPIDOPTERA. 



Dear Sir : There be criticisms and criticisms ; those intended as 

 friendly and those intended as destructive in character, and sometimes 

 one is as unwittingly unjust as the other may be intentionally so. Mr. 

 Dyar's notice of the List of Lepidoptera, in the February number of the 

 Can. Ent., calls forth this moralizing expression. Mr. Dyar is evidently 

 a friendly critic, and I feel obliged for his kind words ; but some of the 

 " inaccuracies and omissions " are misleading. The List went to the 

 jirinter in June, the Bombycids were printed in August, and Mr. Hudson's 

 descriptions of Dasychira and Centra did not appear until September or 

 October. 



Sarrothripa reveyana, S. V., is not an omission. Speyer showed 

 years ago that the American forms were distinct from the European, and 

 he named the Americans 5. lintiieriana. I might have cited reveyana in 

 error as a synonym of lintneriana ; but can hardly be charged with an 

 omission. 



Gastropacha alescensis, Pack., is unknown to me, except in the casual 

 reference by Stretch. It is not given in Dr. Packard's monograph of the 

 Bomb ycid , nor does it appear in Mr. Grote's lists. I have not examined 

 all of Dr. Packard's writings; but in the list of " The Entomological 

 Writings of Dr. Alpheus Spring Packard," by Samuel Henshaw, Bulletin 

 1 6 of the Division of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, there 

 is no mention of any G. alescensis in the " Systematic Index of the New 

 Names Proposed." It is quite fair to assume that no such species was 

 ever described, until Mr. Dyar points out the place of original description. 



The compiler of a list cannot reasonably be held to a special knowledge 

 of all groups, and if he gives the condition of affairs as it stands in 

 literature at the time, he has made no error. As Uterature stood when I 

 wrote, Arctia sciurus had been referred to EuchcBtes collaris, and I could 

 not know that Mr. Edwards had reached a different conclusion — even 

 now Mr. Dyar does not state positively that sciurtis is not a variety of 

 collaris. Unpublished synonymy does not form a good basis for a charge 



