396 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Nov., 'lO 



believing that such is the best way towards understanding past 

 publications, as well as stimulating interest in a much neglected 

 family of Lepidoptera. We cannot all think and see alike, nor 

 is it easy to find two men with exactly the same views about 

 species. Free criticism also leads to the detection of errors, 

 and where the critic errs he may justly claim that expressing 

 a wrong opinion is often more useful than expressing none. 



Paroragrotis catenuloides Smith. 



In Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc. xviii, p. 88, June, 1910, Prof. 

 Smith designates, under this name, the species universally 

 labeled catenula Grt. in American collections, and always named 

 as such by himself. In so doing he has, in the author's opinion, 

 merely created a synonym of vetusta Walker. When I was 

 at the British Museum during February and March, 1909, I 

 recognized in Grote's type of catenula from Colorado, which 

 is excellently figured by Hampson, the contagion-is of Smith. 

 The latter was described in 1900 from Glenwood Springs and 

 Garfield county, Col., and Verdi, Nevada. Prof. Smith sent 

 me specimens five years ago from Stockton, Utah, and I have 

 since received upwards of a hundred from the same locality, 

 from which I now have a picked series of thirty in my col- 

 lection. One of these I have labeled as being exactly like 

 Grote's type of catenula, as I fortunately had a dozen or more 

 specimens of my own with me to choose from. I have one 

 specimen from Glenwood Springs. The type of Walker's 

 vetusta, from Nova Scotia, is a very badly rubbed specimen, 

 but undoubtedly the species passing under that name in the 

 East. My series at present consists of over forty set speci- 

 mens, from Sherborn, Mass. ; Chicago ; Vineyard, Utah ; Den- 

 ver and Glenwood Springs, Col. ; Kalso, B. C., ; Calgary, Alta, 

 and Aweme. Man. The variation consists of differences in 

 tint, from a whitish or luteous to a violaceous gray, and in 

 differences in distinctness of the lines. In some the t. p. line 

 is continuous, deeply crenate; in others it is punctiform only, 

 with whitish points on the veins exterior to the black ones. 

 The reniform is broad but ill defined and irregularly outlined. 



