THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 189 



to make this much of an aid in classification. It is now a question, 

 whether certain forms are valid species or mere varieties, and this can be 

 settled only by further observation or breeding. Many species have a 

 wide range of variation, such as Lacrymosa, but the intergrades and 

 varieties in this species are all well known, and the characters are so 

 strongly marked in all the forms that we need not hesitate with this 

 species. Other species, as Epione and Sappho, are remarkably uniform 

 in their markings, even when from widely-separated localities. Of the 

 validity of these species there is no question, even without breeding. Of 

 some of the others, it seems better to retain their names as species till 

 they are proven otherwise. The closet naturalist is not always able to 

 judge in such cases. Even so good a botanist as Dr. Asa Gray was led 

 astray in at least one instance known to the writer by not knowing his 

 plant in the field. 



In regard to sequence, there seems to be no reason why the smaller 

 species should be regarded as the highest. If activity counts for anything, 

 then Epione certainly stands at the head of the list. Unless we change 

 the usual generic description, AUotria Elonympha, Andretvsia Belfra- 

 giana and Parthenos Ntibilis are not Catocal^e. 



In the December number of the Canadian Entomologist for 189.^, 

 page 308 of Vol. 24, it was shown that too little was known of the larvae 

 10 use them as a basis of classification in this genus. As a rule they are 

 striped longitudinally, but one species, Illeda, has its larva striped trans- 

 versely. Generally there is a lateral fringe along the sides of the larvae, 

 but three species, Obscura, Iniiubens and Illeda, were known not to have 

 this fringe, 15 species having it. As these differed widely in size, colour 

 and markings of the imagines, this character would be of little value in 

 classification. For this and other reasons it seems best to follow the 

 general practice and take the colour of the hind wings as the basis of division 

 of the genus into groups. In this paper the writer will consider only the 

 black-winged species. 



As to the two species, Vichiata and Vidtia, we see no good reason 

 for relegating the former to synonymy. There are numerous instanceswhere 

 names in the same genus in our catalogues are the same except for a slight 

 difference in the termination. From Kirby's Catalogue of the Diurnal 

 L^pidoptera we have Anthocaris Aiisonia and Ausonides, and Papilio 

 ^//Mw^ and Jf?///«^/«.f, and a number of others might be cited. In his 

 Catalogue of the Heterocera, Vol. i, published in 1892, we find Kirby 



