310 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [July, ' OJ 



A new Geometrid Moth from California. 



BY GEO. W. TAYLOR, WELLINGTON, B. C. 



In Dr. Hulst's Classification of the Geometrina of North 

 America he instituted the genus Enchoria describing at the 

 same time as the type a Califoruian moth under the name 

 Enchoria osculata. 



This is a very distinct, and I think, a rather rare species. 

 I saw several not long ago in the cabinet of Mr. H. H. Lyman, 

 of Montreal. They had been collected in Southern California 

 by Morrison, and Mr. L/yman very kindly gave me one of 

 them for my own cabinet. E. osculata might just as well be 

 placed in Hydriomena, and I question whether the genus 

 Enchoria is worth retaining. 



In Dr. Hulst's latest list of Geometrids (in Dyar's cata- 

 logue) he associated a second species with E. osculata, under 

 the name Enchoria albifasciata Packard. This (judging from 

 the reference given) is intended to be the Hypsipctes albifasci- 

 ata which Packard described in the Sixth Report of the Pea- 

 body Academy of Sciences (1874), page 41, and which had 

 previously been figured on Plate I, Vol. XVI of the Proceed- 

 ings of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



The description is repeated in the Monograph, page 97, and 

 a figure of a typical specimen is given on Plate VIII, Fig. 34, 

 but in this publication Packard treats the insect as a variety 

 of Hydriomena sordidata. 



I have always been puzzled to know how Hulst came to asso- 

 ciate together two such dissimilar insects, but recently I have 

 found an explanation. Mr. Grossbeck has kindly sent me a 

 photograph of the insect standing in Hulst's collection as 

 E. albifasciata, and it appears that it is not Packard's species 

 at all, but an undescribed species which I should prefer to 

 place in the genus Mesoleuca. 



Before describing this moth let me point out that that Pack- 

 ard's species is so well described and figured that there can be 

 no doubt as to the form he had before him. I have specimens 

 from San L,uis Obispo, California, and am inclined to give the 

 moth specific rank, but in any case it is not a variety of sordi- 



