THE CAilADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 59 



263. E. tessellata, Harr. — Not common. Treacle. July to middle 

 August. Exceedingly variable. I have $ $'y(\ which there is a tendency 

 to a paler shade on the costa, especially near the base. These bear a 

 resemblance to some forms of nordica, insomuch that I have sometimes 

 confused them. Nordica, however, besides being larger, seems always to 

 have a bluish-gray ground colour, which this species does not possess. 

 Prof. Smith has repeatedly seen my species, so there cannot be much 

 doubt that it is the one designated in North American lists as tessellata. 

 Sir George Hampson, however, recently had specimens from me, and 

 says : "What you send as tessellata, Harr., I should call a dark variety of 

 messoria. It is identical with the types of insulsa and expulsa, Walk." 

 Ifisulsa, as I mentioned under that head, and expulsa, he considers 

 synonyms of messoria. His reference of my No. 263 to messoria is 

 puzzling. Moreover, in Vol. IV., p. 258, of his Catalogue, the type of 

 Walker's insignata is stated to be in the British Museum, and is treated 

 in the text as a synonym of tessellata. Yet, on p. 269, i?isignata, also 

 Walker's species, and in the Museum, is treated as a prior name to 

 pleuritica, so it would appear that Walker attached insignata type labels 

 to different and generally dissimilar species. Taking the names as they 

 now stand in our lists, whilst it is conceivable that bad or poorly marked 

 specimens of tessellata and insiilsa might be confused, or, still more easily, 

 oi pleuritica and messoria, it seems hard to understand that either of one 

 pair could be mistaken for either of the other. Yet it is a noteworthy 

 fact that each of the names, insulsa, expulsa and insignata, have been 

 applied to one or both of each pair. Of the four species, messoria is the 

 only one not yet recorded from Alberta. 



264. E. focinus. Smith. — (Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc, XL, 7, March, 

 1903.) Described partly from Calgary material. " It is the species," says 

 Prof Smith, "that I have mistaken for friabilis in collections, and have 



so named for correspondents It is an ally of tessellata, but 



grayer and narrower winged, with larger ordinary spots." I have one ^ 

 and seven 9 ? bearing his own labels, but none of them bear any 

 resemblance to what he has named tessellata for me. Both this and the 

 following species, however, look to me like nordica without the black 

 markings. A parallel variation is found in ochrogaster (vide infra). How- 

 ever, I have not yet heard of nordica from elsewhere in the range given 

 for focinus, viz.: Pullman, Wash.; Glenwood Springs, Colo., and Cali- 

 fornia. The type is at Rutgers College, but I am not sure whether it is a 

 Calgary specimen. Rare. July and Aug. 



