260 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, 'o8 



Notes on Erebus odoratus L. 



BY C. H. FERNALD, Amherst, Mass. 



In the February number of ENT. NEWS, page 83, Dr. Was, 

 gave his experience in capturing Erebus odor a L. in Oostburg, 

 Wis. 



This insect was first named Phalacna (Boinby.v) odurata 

 Linn, in the Systema Natune, ed. X, Vol. I, page 505, 1758, 

 and the same name was given in Clerck's Icones with a very 

 fine colored figure of the female. In the twelfth edition of his 

 Systema Naturae, Vol. i, Part n, page 811, 1767, Linnaeus 

 changed the name to Phalacna (Attacus) Odora. Why it was 

 changed from odoraia to odora is not clear to me. Formerly, 

 entomologists made use of the twelfth edition of the Systema 

 Naturae and only in recent times has the tenth edition been 

 adopted as a starting point in Zoology. This accounts for the 

 general use of the later name, odora, instead of the older one, 

 odorata. Aurivillius has given a comparatively full synonomy 

 of this insect in earlier works, in his Recensio Critica Lepidop- 

 terorum Musei Ludovicse Ulricse quse descripsit Carolus A 

 Linne, pages 151, and 152, 1882, which work seems to have 

 been generally overlooked in this country. In accordance with 

 the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, Articles 26 

 and 27, this insect should be known by the name of Erebus 

 odoratus (L.). 



Two specimens of this insect were taken on the same evening 

 last summer in the city of Boston. One flew into an office in 

 the Tremont building and the other flew into an open window of 

 the Governor's office in the State House but a short distance 

 away. In 1872 a specimen was found resting on one of the 

 buildings at the University of Maine, at Orono, Maine, nine 

 miles north of Bangor, which is in latitude 44 54' 2" N., the 

 farthest north that I have heard of the capture of this species. 



The question whether this and other southern insects as the 

 cotton worm, fly over seemingly enormous distances and are 

 finally captured in these northern latitudes ; whether they are ac- 

 cidentally carried north in the pupal stage; or whether they 



