THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. HI 



ON ACIDALIA SUBALBARIA, PACKARD, AND SOME ALLIED 



FORMS. 



DY GEO. W. TAYLOR, WELLINGTON, B. C. 



I. In 1874 Dr. Packard^ described and figured a Californian Geometer 

 under the name Acidalia subalbaria. The type was one female, and the 

 specimen was figured in the photographic plate accompanying the paper. 



In his monograph'- Dr. Packard repeats the description word for 

 word, merely adding after the word antenna?, " which are well pectinated 

 in the male'' (for at this time he had both sexes of the species), and at the 

 end of his account he says, " the male antennae are well pectinated, an 

 unusual exception to their ordinary form in this genus." A lithographed 

 figure is given (Mon. plate x, p. 63) of the male specimen, but the mark- 

 ings are emphasized in a way which gives a wrong impression as to their 

 distinctness. The photograph in the earlier paper, though from a very 

 indifferent specimen, gives a much better idea of the species as it is known 

 to me. 



In 1895 Dr. Hulst^ states, on the authority of the late Mr. Moffat, 

 that the type of Acidalia ajiticaria, Walker, in the collection of the 

 Entomological Society of Ontario "is probably the same as A. subalbaria. 

 Pack." In his " Classification," and again in the Geometrid portion of 

 Dyar's Catalogue, Dr. Hulst, apparently on this slender evidence, places 

 the species in the genus Eois as a synonym of afiticaria, Walker. But 

 anyone reading Walker's description* of anticai'ia can see at a glance that 

 he is writing of a true St err hi d : " head black in front," "antennae pubes- 

 cent," " discal point black," — these are all characters quite in keeping with 

 an Eois, but not at all agreeing with Packard's subalbaria^ which by 

 Packard's own showing is not a Sterrhid at all_, but a Diastictis. 



I have in my cabinet a specimen quite typical of this form, received 

 through the kindness of Prof. C. F Baker, and taken in Southern California. 



2. A veiy similar species oi Diastictis was described by Dr. Dyar, in 

 his paper on the Lepidoptera of the Kootenai District,'^ as Cymatophora 

 Matilda. 



I have one of Dr. Dyar's co-types in my collection, and also a long 

 series from various British Columbian localities, and from Verdi, Nevada. 



1. Proc. Bost. Soc. Xat. Hist., X\'I, p. 28, fig-. 15. 



z. -Monograph Geom. Mollis, p. 334. 



3. Ent, News, VI, p. 72. 



4. Cat. Lep. Het. Br. Mus., XX\'I, p. 1593. 



5. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXVII, p. 907. 



April, iyo6 



