THE CANADIAN ENT0M0L0GIS1. 129 



gone in the earth and now transformed. But the two chrysalis skins were 

 there, and not in the earth, but in the stick, the abdomen still in the silky 

 cocoon of the larva before mentioned. I was more astonished that the 

 pupa skins were perfectly smooth on the dorsum, and showed in no way 

 the dorsal arcuated plates with blunt flattened projections, as described by 

 Mr. Riley. I believed at first- — as at any time when my observations 

 disagree with those of other scientists — that I was mistaken or misled by 

 some curious event. I compared the moths again with typical specimens, 

 and there was no doubt that both are P. yuccasella, with its long pointed 

 maxillary palpi. I examined the jar carefully, but I failed to find other chry- 

 salis skins than the two mentioned before, and I failed to find any other 

 moth in the jar which could have transformed out of the skins. The Yucca 

 sticks were kept alone and entirely isolated the whole time, in a large jar, in 

 which nothing else had been raised before. The case seemed to me so 

 mysterious that I decided to wait until more moths would transform. But 

 to this date (June 6 -now July i) none have appeared, and in splitting 

 some sticks I found the larvae living as briskly as before, and was not able 

 to find any chrysalis, as I failed to find any in May. 



I wish to give at least a notice of this remarkable fact, the more 

 remarkable as Y. jilamcntosa is said not to be fructified by Pr. yuccasella. 



June 10. 



This moment I see Mr. Riley's article on Prodoxus. His remark (p. 

 142, Am. Ent. ) that I have not been willing to send a specimen, is true, 

 but he has forgotten to add that I wrote to him : " Because I was 

 studying the insect myself, and was about to publish it." 



I had decided to drop my article had I not in the study of the two 

 female imagoes at hand found that the basal joint of the maxillary palpi 

 is produced in a spinous tentacle just as in Pronuba. Therefore the only 

 distinctive character mentioned by Mr. Riley is not present in my 

 specimens ; consequently my specimens can not be Prodoxus, if Riley's 

 description is correct. The specimens from Colorado types of Pr. yuc- 

 casella Chamb. possess pointed maxillary palpi. Three of them have no 

 spots on the wings (the two raised by me have also no spots). The ovi- 

 positor of one is exposed as in Pr. yuccasella. I don't know which species 

 Mr. Boll has now at hand, but the type of Te^et. alba Zeller from Dallas, 

 Texas, is Pronuba yuccasella. 



