120 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



is often a very great difference between the sexes, not only in size 

 and color, but also in the wing-form and in the maculation ; in- 

 deed, the case of male and female of one species forming types 

 of distinct genera, is not unknown among this family. The sec- 

 ond series has a more Bombycid appearance, and may be typified 

 by Hypopta. The vestiture has a more dense, matted appearance 

 than in any Bombycid, however, and the wings have unusually 

 long and very even fringes. In this series the colors are white, 

 or pale gray and yellowish, with longitudinal marks and lines, 

 and there is no marked difference between the sexes. The larvae 

 of all the species, so far as I know them, are wood borers, living 

 in the trunks of trees and boring great channels. As is usually 

 the case with Endophytes of this character, they are white, or 

 with a faint reddish tinge, and are furnished with piliferous tu- 

 bercles, which are as usually black. The abdominal legs have a 

 complete circlet of spinules, in which character they differ from 

 all the Bombycid larvae, and agree with those of the Sesiidae and 

 Pyralidae. They usually require more than one, and sometimes 

 more than three years to complete their transformations from egg 

 to imago. 



Our native species of Cossidae are rarely common, and yet 

 more rarely injurious. Within the last decade or thereabouts, 

 there has been introduced into our country, in the vicinity of 

 New York, a European species, Zeuzera pyrina Fab., which bids 

 fair to become a first-class pest to Elm and other shade and or- 

 namental trees. In Newark, N. J., it is becoming annually more 

 abundant, and signs of its injuries increase. Mr. E. B. South- 

 wick reports that, in the Central Park, N. Y. City, its ravages are 

 increasing rapidly, and from the nature of the injury done it is one 

 of the pests most to be dreaded. 



Following the Cossidae in our lists are the Hepialidae, which 

 are also out of place. The family is unique in every respect, and 

 has the appearance and characters of a survivor of an ancient 

 type left stranded among a mass of modern developments. Both 

 pairs of wings have twelve veins; both have an accessory cell, 

 and in both the median cell is divided. There are no ocelli, there 

 is no tongue, and no frenulum. The head is minute, the palpi 

 are weak, the antennae short and bristle-like. The wings are 

 large and often frail, the thoracic rings are unusually well marked, 

 and the body is usually long and cylindrical. Prof. Comstock 



