26 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ON GRAPHIPHORA AND NEW N. AM. NOCTUIDT.. 



BY A. R. GROTE, A. M., 



Director of the Museum, Buffalo Society Natural Sciences. 



As our acquaintance with the numerous forms of this group increases 

 the arbitrary division of the individuals into species and the species into 

 genera becomes a matter of increasing difficulty. At the same time this 

 does not absolve us from a careful study of the organism in all its parts, 

 and a correction of former groupings becomes as obligatory as the publi- 

 cation of the original observation. The limits of the genera Mamcstra and 

 Graphiphora are not always easy to establish from the imago, widely though 

 they are usually separated. Both are distinguishable by the hairy eyes 

 from all naked-eyed Nocture, and by the unarmed tibia; from all genera 

 (e. g. Agrotis ) which have one pair or more spinose. But Mamcstra is 

 tufted more or less obviously on thorax and dorsum of abdomen, and 

 Graphiphora ( = Taeniocampa of authors) is without these tufts. Speci- 

 mens received from California, and not in very good condition, have been 

 referred by me to Mamcstra and Dianthoecia, which, from fresh material 

 received from Dr. J. S. Bailey, I now refer to Graphiphora. These are : 



Graphiphora putrilis. 



Mamestra puerilis Grote, Bull. B. S. N. S.. II., p. 9. 



Graphiphora rufula. 



Dianthoecia rufula Grote, Bull. B. S. N. S., II., p. 64 (May, 1874). 



The genus Dianthoecia is established for Mamcstras with exserted ovi- 

 positors. 1 have elsewhere expressed the idea that such a division is 

 untenable, because species ver) similar in general appearance are separated 

 by it. And in Graphiphora we have species witli the ovipositor exserted 

 (oviduca) and not (incerta ). So far as I can see, the relative position of 

 the ovipositor may vary in one species. The type of rufula has it 

 exserted. Fresh females show no evidence <>t it. There is a variation in 

 the color of rufula from reddish to gray, which is interesting. The 

 variety at first sight looks like a different species, but I have a specimen 

 which seems to me intermediary in shade, and we have a wide range of 

 color in incerta. Anion- the species which I now range anion- the Gra- 

 phiphora- is 



