C!)£ Canadian ^ntjomobobt 



VOL. V. LONDON, ONT., MAY, 1873. No. 5 



HYPENA SCABRA (Fabr.) AND H. ERECTALIS, Guen. 



BY J. A. LINTNER, ALBANY, N. Y. 



In the examination of my last season's collections of Hypcna scabrct 

 (scabralis, Guen.,) and " H. erectalis" for sexual determinations, I was 

 surprised to find of the former, only the male represented, and of the 

 latter, only the female. Collections of each having been made during the 

 same period of time (from September 1st to September 24th) and at the 

 same place (the wall and ceiling of the piazza of my residence) — such a. 

 remarkable occurrence seemed to be so removed from accident, and 

 inexplicable from any difference of sexual habits, that I was led to suspect 

 the identity of the two species. On referring. to my cabinet, I there 

 found individuals labelled as £ and $ of each species ; but, on a critical 

 review of these determinations by an infallible method of distinguishing 

 sex in the Heterocera, viz., the structure of the frenulum (simple in the 

 male and compound in the female), my " £ " sedbra proved to be a $ , 

 and my " $ " erectalis a £ . Among my duplicates of the collections of 

 several years, the same result obtained. Mentioning these facts to my 

 friend, Mr. Meske, of this city, he was quite positive of having in his 

 cabinet the sexes of each species, but he subsequently found that a 

 frenulum inspection of all his examples gave him only one sex of each 

 form. There was, therefore, no longer room for doubt of the identity of 

 the " two species" — that " erectalis" is only the female (though uniformly 

 smaller) of scabra. 



It is interesting, in connection with the above, to notice that Guenee,. 

 in his description of scabralis, refers to seven $ 's under his observation, 

 and says, " Je ne connais pas la °. ." Of erectalis he says, "3 g , 1 $ ." 

 Mr. Grote (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, iv, p. 102) cites <J and °. of erectalis 



