THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 329 



NEW SESIID MOTHS. 



BY T. D. A. COCKERELL, BOULDER, COLORADO. 



Sesia fragarice (Hy. Edw.), var. semiprcestans, v. no v. 

 9. — Length almost 12 mm.; anterior wing, loi/^ ; antennae simple, 

 dark steel blue, with a dusky apical tuft; occiput, cheeks and palpi covered 

 with orange-vermilion scales ; last two joints of palpi with a few black 

 scales ; tongue long ; vertex with black scales, and a little tuft of red on 

 each side ; a little red beneath each antennal socket ; face convex, shining 

 purple ; thorax at sides orange, tinged with purplish-pink, above dark, 

 with very strong peacock colours, green and purple, and rudimentary 

 sublateral red stripes ; patagia tipped with orange; legs metallic dark blue 

 and green, with the tibiae orange-vermilion, except at apex and base, and 

 the tarsi also with many light orange scales ; anterior wings metallic 

 peacock-green, irrorated with pale reddish scales, but the lower margin, 

 greatly widening basally, is a splendid orange, suffused with purple and 

 crimson, while near the apical margin the dark scales are blackish ; the 

 discal red stripe is evident, but small ; hind wings covered with orange 

 scales, with only small transparent patches, these, perhaps, due to abrasion, 

 veins IMg, Cu^ and Cug black-scaled ; fringes very long, shining yellowish- 

 plumbeous ; abdomen dark peacock-green, with the fourth segment, and 

 the hind margins of the two following, vermilion ; caudal tuft vermilion, 

 with a few^ dark hairs laterally ; beneath, the abdomen is red laterally, and 

 mainly dark in the middle. 



Ilab. — Florissant, Colorado, prox. 8,000 ft., June 21, 190S, flying 

 rapidly over very dry and barren ground (Cockerell). 



Beutenmiiller (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., VHI., 144) remarks that 

 S. prt^stafis (from Washington State) is much Wktfragarice, but "is larger, 

 and is marked with orange in the cell and streaked with this colour in the 

 area beyond the discal mark." In the orange streaking our insect is like 

 prcEstans, but in the colour of the legs and the size it is \\V.t frngarics. 

 The colour of the abdomen is more like that of prcestans than fragarice. 

 Henry Edwards, in his original description oi fragaricB^ omits all mention 

 of the red fourth abdominal segment — a most conspicuous feature of 

 fragarice^ as understood by Beutenmiiller, who examined Edwards's type. 

 Beutenmuller^ however, says the type is "one female from Colorado," 

 whereas Edwards describes the species primarily from a male. 



September. 1908 



