THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 345 



PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA OF 



ALBERTA, N.-W. T. 



BV F. H. WOLLEY DOD, MILLARVILLE, ALTA. 



(Continued from Vol. XXXIIL, p. 172.) 

 It is now over three years since I published a list of Albertan butter- 

 flies under the above title. The list gave promise "to be continued," and 

 it was fully intended at the time to publish the continuation the same year, 

 but for a variety of reasons it had to be postponed. The delay, liowever, 

 has not been without advantages. Not only have a number of species 

 come to hand that had not been recorded here up to that time, but many 

 that wete then standing under names by which I had known them for 

 years, have been found to be wrongly named, and several of them have 

 been described as new species. Closer study, too^ of long series, has 

 resulted in a better understanding of nearly alued forms ; and it is hoped 

 that some of the notes here appended, though they have no claim 

 to perfection, will enable some obscure species to be more easily separated 

 than they have been hitherto. At the same time, I much regret that I 

 have not been able to make more comparison of local material with that 

 from other districts. Not only has it been hard to spare the time which 

 much exchanging calls for, but it has often proved a very difficult, if not 

 impossible matter, to get by exchange some of the commonest species, 

 their very commonness seeming to render them, so to speak, scarce, at 

 least in collections. I hope, however, to pay more attention to exchange 

 in the future, and when more forms from other localities have come to 

 hand the result of their study, and comparison with their Alberta represen- 

 tatives will probably be published from time to time. 



Of the radical changes that have taken place in classification since 

 my list of butterflies was published, enough has been said. Of the two 

 recently published North American lists, I have preferred to follow that of 

 Prof. Smith, as it seems to me to give a better arrangement of the 

 Noctuidie, or at least of the species in their respective families, and it is 

 the Noctuidai that have always been my favourite group. Though I am 

 doubtful as to whether the term is any longer recognized, or if so, just 

 where the line is drawn, I have included all the old-time " Macros," 

 meaning thereby those genera which used to be known in European lists 

 fifteen years ago as Sphinges, Bombyces, Geometrae, Cuspidated, and 

 Noctu.ie. Though I still study them as with the " larger fry," the 

 Hepialidae at any rate have been eliminated from their former position, as 



