248 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



FOOD PLANT OF EUPHANESSA MENDICA. 



On page 227, Vol. III., Canadian Entomologist, I find note of 

 Mr. Saunders's unsuccessful endeavours to find the food plant of this 

 species, and no record of the food plant is contained in Bulletin No. 35 

 of the United States National Museum, " Bibliographical Catalogue of 

 the Described Transformations of North American Lepidoptera," by 

 Henry Edwards. I offer the following information upon this matter : 

 While picking the common violet, something dropped from one of the 

 leaves, and as the leaf was considerably eaten I at once made careful 

 search. I found a larva in the form of an eye (such as is used by dress- 

 makers) among and hardly distinguishable from dried grasses and twigs, 

 except by its peculiar form. I gathered nine or ten of these, in different 

 stages, and reared them to maturity. The larva, so far as I can remem- 

 ber, having made no notes, varies very little in form or colour in any of its 

 stages. The larvre are very easily reared. The chrysalis is formed 

 between twigs or leaves knit together by several silken threads, in which 

 state it remains about ten days. Frank Lucock, Pittsburg, Pa. 



Dr. O. Hofmann, Uber die Anordnung der borstentragenden VVarzen 

 bei der Raupen der Pterophoriden. 

 Prof Grote has kindly sent me a copy of this article by Dr. Hofmann, 

 published in the " lUustrierte Zeitschrift fiir Entomologie." Dr. Hofmann 

 gives figures showing the arrangement of the warts in the larva? of certain 

 Pterophoridse. He shows that the setse may vary from single to multiple, 

 that tubercles i. and ii. may be separate or united and that iv. and v. may 

 be separate (fig. 7). On the basis of this variation, he criticises the value 

 of the larval characters in classification, saying, " After we have seen how 

 many modifications the normal type of wart formation may undergo in 

 the small, well-limited family Pterophoridae, which is evidently a natural 

 family, we cannot give the same high systematic value to it as Dyar does," 

 etc. Dr. Hofmann has encountered an extreme case; but it does not 

 invalidate my larval classification, as he seems to think. I have not con- 

 tended that family characters were strongly marked in the larvte, though 

 they are often well indicated. My contention has been for the super- 

 family groups, and these are not in any way invalidated by Dr. Hofmann's 



facts, as a reference to my definitions will show. 



Harrison G. Dyar. 



Mailed September 12th, 1898. 



