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Vol. XLII. LONDON, DECEMBER, 1910. No. 12 



NOTES ON CERTAIN SPECIES OF GRAPTOLITHA. 



BY HENRY H. LYMAN, M. A.. MONTREAL. 



In 1868 Grote & Robinson, in Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, I, used the 

 generic title Xylina Ochs. in describing Btthtinei and capax, Guenee and 

 Walker having previously used the same term, but in 1875 Grote in his 

 check list adopted instead the name LitJwphane Hubn., which he continued 

 to use, but Dr. J. B. Smith in his check list of 1891 reverted to the name 

 Xylhia, and in his catalogue of 1893 wrote : " I use this name in prefer- 

 ence to LitJwphane because both are catalogue names and Xylina has 

 priority." Dr. Dyar used the same name in his catalogue, but Sir George 

 Hampson has adopted the name Graptholitha from Hubner's Verzeich- 

 niss, which he dates 1827, the year following Hubner's deaih. 



In my paper on Entomological Errors, published in the last Annual 

 Report of the Society, I said the origin of these errors could in most cases 

 only be surmised, but I have no .doubt that a large proportion of them 

 arose from entomologists naming specimens from memory, as such a 

 practice in closely allied forms is certain to cause errors. 



In 1874 Grote described Lithophane petidca in the 6lh Annual 

 Report of the Peabody Academy of Sciences of Salem, Mass , and also 

 gave a description oi signosa Walk., but in his paper o\\ Lithophane in the 

 Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey, Vol. V, 

 No. 2, 1879, '^^ vvrote : " In my own visit to the British Museum in 1867, 

 I had no North American Xylinas to compare," and he was therefore 

 compelled to trust entirely to his memory. In Smith's catalogue of 

 Noctuidce of 1893, that author wrote : 



'• X. signosa Wlk. 

 petulca Grt. 



" The types are both in the British Museum, and refer to the same 

 species. Mr. Grote has misidentified Walker's species, the signosa Grote 

 remaining unnamed." 



" X. iimominata non nov. 

 signosa | Grcjte. 



