THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 229 



and ventrally, white. Head (usually) and entire body densely white polli- 

 nose, but that of the head sometimes yellow ; the pile white. Antennae 

 having the first joint once and a-half as long as broad, slightly shorter 

 than the third joint, the latter nearly as broad as long. Wings whitish 

 hyaline, stigma yellow ; faint clouds are perceptible on the cross- 

 veins ; fourth posterior cell closed and petiolate. 



Length, 8 mm. Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, California. 

 Two specimens. 



Psilocephala obscura, n. sp. — 9 Black, the palpi, proboscis, tibiae, 

 base of tarsi, knob of halteres, posterior margins of the second, third 

 and fourth abdominal segments, and the greater portion of the three 

 following segments, yellow. Front and face brownish-gray pollinose, 

 short pile of front, bristles of antennas and of upper part of the occiput, 

 black, pile of lower part of occiput and of the mouth parts white ; first 

 and third antennal joints subequal in length, style one-third as long as the 

 third joint, the latter nearly twice as wide as the second joint, Thorax 

 grayish-brown pollinose and with two widely separated light-gray pollinose 

 vitt?e ; pile of thorax mixed yellow and black, the bristles black ; pile and 

 pollen of pleura white, scutellum grayish-brown pollinose, that around 

 the margin light-gray, the four bristles black. Abdomen shining, the first 

 segment lightly pollinose, posterior margins of the second, third and 

 fourth segments, and greater portion of the fifth and sixth, white pollinose; 

 pile of first two segments yellowish, that on the' remaining segments and 

 on the venter largely black. Wings hyaline, stigma yellow, fourth 

 posterior cell closed in the margin. 



Length, 7 mm. Kingston, Jamaica (Johnson). A single specimen. 



ON SOME LEPIDOPTEROUS LARV^ ON ALFALFA. 



BY C. H. TYLER TOWNSEND, KINGSTON, JAMAICA, W. I. 



During the last two years a considerable number of rather small 

 lepidopterous larva? have been found on alfalfa ( ' Medicago sativa) in 

 Southern New Mexico. In the material collected there are nine distinct 

 species represented. None of them have been bred. These larvae are of 

 considerable economic importance, as they occasion a certain amount of 

 injury to the alfalfa crop, which is the surest and most paying crop of the 

 Mesilla valley. They are of some scientific interest also, since hardly 

 anything is recorded of alfalfa insects. It is therefore thought advisable 

 to publish the following descriptions of these larvae, which were made 



