THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 100 



there seems no proper place to assign the species, and after careful con- 

 sideration, aided from several sources in forming a more correct conception 

 of the earlier described types in the British Museum, it appears incum- 

 bent to advance a new name. This is our apology for entering the 

 domain of the describer, as our idea in this matter had been that such 

 offices are only properly filled by the specialists in their respective 

 branches. 



Hydrxcia baptisix, sp. nov. 



Imago expands 35 to 38 mm.; the general characters and habitus 

 fully typical to the marginidens section of the genus. Antennae simple, 

 both sexes, with a white scale at the base. The thoracic vestiture is ample, 

 shaded with tints of primaries; the collar has a yellowish edging above, 

 and is centrally prolonged into an adze-shaped tuft. The abdomen is 

 also tufted with a series of small crests, which diminish posteriorly, and 

 are lost on the fourth segment. The primaries show a trifle narrower in 

 their proportions than some of the allies, with a tendency to acuteness at 

 the apex. Colours are an admixture of red-brown overlaying a yellow 

 ground, the outer portion affected but slightly by the usual purple shading. 

 At extreme base a white scale ; basal half-line irregular, " 3 " shaped, 

 encloses an area well defined, and, in all cases noted, yellow. T. a. line 

 indistinct except at inner margin, where it shows plainly geminate. It 

 forms the outer boundary to a portion that is tinted with the purple shade 

 of the outer spaces. T. p. line of the usual irregular course, bending out- 

 ward past the reniform with a fairly true ogee curve ; is geminate, having 

 the inner line red-brown, the outer purplish. The median field thus 

 enclosed is red-brown, the lower portion showing the yellow undercolour- 

 ing more conspicuously. Median shade lines faintly discernible, a wavy 

 shade from the lower part of reniform to inner margin. S. t. line yery 

 erratic, incurved between the veins ; the subterminal area is an unbroken 

 band from costa to inner margin, fairly parallel. Its colour is the same 

 throughout, a reddish-purple. (Purple being the effect of mixing red and 

 blue, the resultant tint may tend to one or the other of the primary 

 colours in proportion to which predominates in the mixture. Hence, 

 reddish-purple implies largely of red and little of blue. It is important to 

 designate accurately the tone of the subterminal area, as it takes on a 

 varying shade of purple in most of the species With purpurifascia it 

 shows very nearly a royal purple, while in catapkracta it becomes at 

 times almost a simple blue.) The terminal space reverts to the tone of 



