^l|e ^Wiculiun |intomala0i$t. 



Vol. XLIII. LONDON, AUGUST, 191 1. No. 8 



NOTES ON TWO SPECIES OF APANTESIS. 



BY WM. BARNES, M. D., AND J. MCDUNNOUGH, PH. D. 



During March and April of this year we received from N. Carolina a 

 number of Arctian larvae found on lupine which could at once be recog- 

 nized as representing two distinct species. The larger, and seemingly 

 rarer of the two, was entirely-velvety black with a broken orange-red 

 dorsal stripe, which showed in some cases a great tendency to become 

 obsolete. It seemed most closely to agree with x\bbott and Smith's 

 ligure of the larva of A. place)itia. A reference to the literature on the 

 subject, however, failed to clear up our doubts ; Dyar, in the Journal N.Y.. 

 Ent. Soc, VIII, 42, remarks that this figure has never been verified and 

 that no description of the larva is extant, and our search through the later 

 literature failed to give any further data. Nothing, therefore, remained 

 but to let Nature take its course, and to await the emergence of the imago 

 to settle the question. The larvae fed up well on dandelion and pupated 

 at long intervals under a slight web on the surface of the cage. The first 

 specimen to emerge proved a great surprise ; it was a splendid male, but 

 instead of having the fore-wings black, with several white spots, as in 

 Abbott's figure of placentia, our specimen showed a very close resem,- 

 blance to what we have always considered to he phyilira. In the course 

 of a couple of weeks two more males similar in every particular had 

 emerged, and we began to have wild dreams of a possible new species. 



In the meantime our other group had reached maturity and pupated; 

 they were considerably smaller and could at once be separated from the 

 first mentioned larvae by the fact that the tubercles were nearly all prom- 

 inently tipped with ochreous, the spiracles were light orange, instead of 

 black, and the dorsal stripe was usually broad, continuous, and creamy 

 yellow, instead of orange-red ; this latter feature, however, showed consid- 

 erable variation, some of our larvae having a much broken and reduced 

 stripe. As these larvae agreed fairly well with Abbott and Smith's figure 

 oi phyllira larva, and with Packard's description of same (Jour. N. Y. 

 Ent. Soc, III, 178), as far as could be judged, we awaited with a good 

 deal of impatience the first imagines, in order to carefully compare the 



