THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 100 



NEW SPECIES AND HISTORIES IN PAPAIPEMA SM. 



(LEPIDOPTERA.) 



BY HENRY BIRD, RYE, N. Y. 



(Continued from Vol. XLVI, p. 73.) 



Recent investigations of the Papaipema fauna in the vicinity 



of Chicago, 111., has brought to light, among other things, the 



prevalence of an undetermined species, a representative of the 



Central States. More success attaches to this, since instead of a 



chance happening on an imago, a well directed search of the more 



indigenous plants disclosed the larva, and put the additional evi- 

 dence of the early stages at our disposal. After moths were reared , 

 it was seen to be a form that had been taken occasionally in former 

 years, but identified as P. necopina Grt., and so distributed in a 

 few instances by the local collectors. But the departures in the 

 larval and pupal stages as well as the apparent difference in the 

 imago, when a fresh series is at hand, produce a sum of evidence 

 prohibiting its association with any described form. 



To the efforts of Messrs. A. Kwiat and E. Beer, whose early 

 studies in these life-histories are thus encouragingly rewarded, we 

 i are indebted for this fine disclosure, whereby one of our largest 

 Papaipema species has its individuality proclaimed. Very gener- 

 ously they have placed their material and data in our hands for 

 treatment. 



In our early correspondence it was suggested that special 

 attention be given to indigenous and primitive prairie plants in 

 the effort to locate larva, the writer's hopes of conducting such 

 investigations personally, failing of realization up to the present. 

 The new form is found working in Silphiiim, principally S. terebin- 

 thinaceum, but in some extent in S. perfoliatum and S. laciniatum 

 also, while in one instance a pupa from Arctium indicates an 

 alternative occupancy of this cosmopolitan substitute, which 

 happens so frequently in suburban borders. Believing the pre- 

 ferred foodplant to be restricted to the genus Silphium, which 

 seems more or less a prairie type, we beg to propose the following 

 name: 



April, 1915 



