194 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



which Mr. Lyman has never seen ; and this description was made by 

 Grote from two of Walker's types which he saw and handled, and v/hich 

 bore Walker's own identification marks ; and Messrs. Dyar and Beuten- 

 muller have declared the moths, raised as above mentioned, to be 

 identical with S. antigoiu, Strecker ; and Walker's name of the species 

 has the priority. What more would Mr. Lyman have ? Does he think 

 we should be any better off if he himself had seen Walker's types and 

 described them ? 

 IL — Concerning Riley's theory. 



I may truly say that I was an entomologist before Mr. Lyman was 

 born, and it seems to me " only the other day " that Prof. Riley pro- 

 pounded his theory that " many names,'' of which he instanced four, 

 viz., cuiiea, Drury ; textor, Harris ; punctata, Fitch, diWA ptitictatissima, 

 S. & A., were merely synonyms — the first of the four having the priority. 

 Up to that time no one had thought of calling the moth from our Northern 

 Fall Web-worm anything but textor. Walsh and Riley so designated it in 

 Vols. L and IL of the " American Entomologist"; so did Packard in his 

 "Guide"- my copy is one of the 7th edition, published in 1883 ; and 

 Saunders, in his '• Insects Injurious to Fruits," published in the same year. 



Riley had done good work as an entomologist, and men were 

 disposed to accept his teaching without question. Dr. Smith adopted it, 

 and " Smith's List " has been the guide of our younger entomologists. 

 Hence the use of cunea to designate the moths from Fall Web-worms. 



But I maintain that when I spoke of Bombyx ctmea, Drury, no one 

 had a right to assume that I meant som.ething else — that I meant (to 

 adopt Dr. Dyar's formula) ctmea, Riley (nee Drury). 



If no one till now has questioned the identy of ainea, Drury, and 



punctatissima, S. & A., it has been because no one has had the reason 



for questioning it that now exists, viz., the discovery of an insect that 



more closely answers to Drury's figure and description than punctatissinia 



does. 



Whether Hyphantria punctatissima, S. & A., and H. textor, Harris, 

 are identical or not can be easily proved by our Southern entomologists. 

 They have only to breed carefully from eggs of each sort to determine 

 the matter. It will be " too ridiculous " if it should prove that in this 

 respect also we have been misled by Riley — that after all there is but one 

 brood of textor in the season, and but one brood oi punctatissima^ and 



