222 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [May, '13 



The Appearance of an Unexpected Noctuid on the 

 Atlantic Seaboard (Lepid.) 



By H. BIRD, Rye, New York. 



In 1881 Grote described a western Noctuid, now classed an 

 Apamea, as Gortyna erepta, his unique type being captured 

 by Prof. F. Snow, in Douglas County, Kansas. This type 

 found its way to the British Museum and the species seems 

 not to have been met with since. Some years ago, during the 

 lifetime of Prof. Snow, the writer corresponded with him in 

 hopes of securing other examples from that locality, but while 

 the professor remembered the insect very well, he had never 

 learned of its capture again. Little were we aware that a fine 

 colony was flourishing within ten minutes' walk of my door. 



One of the largest grasses found at Rye is Tripsacum 

 dactyloides L., and its occurrence seems confined to a few 

 locations where the margin of upland and salt meadow meet, 

 and is here subjected to inundation by the extreme high tides 

 that occur at intervals. This strip of vegetation, rarely but 

 a few feet wide, exemplifies a remnant of primitive flora which 

 it is hard to duplicate elsewhere. The salty conditions render 

 it unfit for cultivation, and it is allowed to remain waste, a 

 sample of our only local, pre-Columbian, upland flora. It 

 seems evident that Tripsacum obtains here due to this undis- 

 turbed condition, rather than that it likes a salty environment, 

 since it follows the Upper Austral zone, south and westward, 

 more than half across the country. A search of the grasses 

 had been going on for some years to apprehend the larva of 

 Apamea americana Speyer, or A. nictitans L., as some choose 

 to consider it, reported to bore "grasses" by certain American 

 writers. This is a generalized statement apparently and 

 seems based on reports from European sources that there the 

 nictitans forms have such a food habit. While many grasses, 

 and Tripsacum in particular, had been under observation be- 

 fore, it was not till 1911 that a likely borer was found work- 

 ing in the latter, a form showing Apamea or Hydroccla char- 

 acteristics, and supposed at the time of its discovery to be 

 americana without doubt. It so happened on this occasion a 



