THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 347 



pletely ignored genitalic differences claimed by Prof. Smith. It is, I think, 

 for superficial characters that most of us naturally look, and though the 

 "genitalia test " is doubtless of the highest value as an aid, I am not 

 aware that its infallibility is an accepted fact. I have not, however, studied 

 the matter, and am quite willing to accept it at its estimated worth. The 

 genus Euxoa is perhaps the most difficult in all the Noctuidie to under- 

 stand. Species run so very close together, and vary so tremendously inter 

 i,c that it is often almost impossible to tell where one ends and another 

 begins. It is probable that many groups in this genus will never really be 

 made much of without careful breeding from known females. Tiie matter 

 is intricate enough in dealing only with material from one locality, but 

 when geographical variation has to be taken into account, I believe there 

 is hardly a genus in all the Lepidoptera in which species are harder to 

 define. In the Noctuidie I have given references to all published figures 

 of western species known to me elsewhere than in the works of Dr. 

 Holland and Sir George Hampson. 



Unfortunately, not much attention has as yet been paid to the 

 Cieometridie in this district. But though for that reason records have not 

 been very carefully kept, the notes and dates given, as far as they go, 

 have been very carefully prepared, and may be relied upon as being 

 tolerably accurate. The Rev. G. W. Taylor has recently commenced a 

 special study of the whole group, and through his kindness at least half of 

 those here listed are now named, which could not have been named three 

 years ago owing to there then being no one working on them that I knew 

 of. Amongst those that I had at that time named, it turns out that the 

 late Dr. Hulst had made several peculiar errors. The names I now give 

 are all on the authority of Mr. Taylor, and the (?.^) are his also. 



It is often a difficult matter to decide whether to put down a species 

 as " common " or " rare." The majority of species seem to have their 

 special seasons or series of seasons ; and favourable or unfavourable 

 conditions for existence seem sometimes to show their effects on an entire 

 genus. Almost every year something or other turns up in some numbers 

 that has always been considered a great rarity, or else never before been 

 met with at all, and vice versa. Every moth-collector of experience must 

 know, too, how sometimes a species shows up rather freely for one or two 



nights only, though to all appearance on the preceding and succeeding 

 nights the conditions are practically the same. 



All captures, unless otherwise expressly stated, refer to the district 

 near the head of Pine Creek, about eighteen miles south-west of Calgary. 



