12 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Jan., '22 



A New North American Psychid (Lep., Psychidae.) 



By FRANK MORTON JONES, Wilmington, Delaware. 



Oiketicus toumeyi n. sp. 



$ . Head, thorax and abdomen including the legs, tawny yellowish 

 brown, hairy, the eyes black. The antenna with about 36 joints, brown, 

 basally broadly bipectinate, the branches narrowing abruptly about 

 three-fifths the length of the shaft from the base. The anterior tibia 

 bears a slender, flattened, strap-like appendage, one-half as long as the 

 tibia. The abdomen is long and slender, exceeding the wings by the 

 width of the secondaries. 



The wing veins are yellowish brown ; the wings are glassy, as in 

 ephemerae formis, and are only very sparsely speckled with a few dark 

 scales, which are more dense along the costa of the secondaries; the 

 anal area of the secondaries is semi-opaque with brown hairs. The 

 primaries are narrow and moderately acute, the costa almost straight, 

 the outer margin oblique; the costa of secondaries is arched, the apical 

 angle acute, the outer margin almost straight to the second cubital vein, 

 below which the anal area is somewhat produced and the margin 

 rounded. The primaries usually have 12 veins, the secondaries 8, with 

 M2 and M3 (5 and 4) of both wings stalked to the cell; but M2 (5) 

 is occasionally obsolete or partially so. The anal veins of primaries 

 are as in abboti Grt. Wing expanse, 28 to 52 mm. 



Type locality, Tucson, Arizona. Described from numerous 

 bred specimens ; the type is in the collection of the author, 

 and paratype material will be distributed. 



This is almost certainly the insect mentioned by Dr. J. W. 

 Tourney (Bull. 9, Ariz. Ag. Exp. Sta., 1893) as "Thyridop- 

 tery.v sp.," abundant on locust trees in the vicinity of Tucson ; 

 the general resemblance of its larval case to that of townsendi 

 Ckll. has probably prevented its earlier recognition as distinct, 

 though the moths of toumeyi and tozvnsendi are very unlike. 



Lice and a Horsefly Transmitting Disease (Dip., Tabanidae). 



The United States Public Health Service announces that the re- 

 searches of Doctors Edward Francis, Bruce Mayne and G. C. Lake 

 show that the rodent disease, tularaemia, due to Bacterium tularensc 

 in the blood, which is very fatal to jack rabbits in Utah, is transmitted 

 from rabbit to rabbit by their lice and from rabbits to man by the 

 blood-sucking horsefly, Chrysops discalis. 



Tularaemia is seldom fatal to man, only one death due to it being 

 known. It is a septic fever, occurring in Utah, lasting 3-6 weeks, 

 with slow convalescence. Its economic consequences, therefore, may 

 be serious when it attacks farmers and lays them up in midsummer 

 and in harvest seasons. 



