THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 141 



NOTE ON ACRONYCTA CRISTIFERA, WALK. 



BY A. R. GROTE, A.M., BREMEN, GERMANY. 



Thanks to the identifications of Prof. Smith with the British Museum 

 collection which contains Walker's types, we have now a certainty as to 

 the correct names of almost all our species. It is clear from different 

 remarks in the catalogue that under Mr. Butler's rearrangement of the 

 material some shifting of the specimens described by Walker has taken 

 place, and this shifting has equally certainly led here or there to an 

 accidental shifting of label. I suggest as a possible solution to the 

 Acronycfa cristifera mystery, that the specimen B. Mus. Lists, IX., 230, 

 1856, marked: " W. Orillia, West Canada, from Mr. Bush's collection," 

 and determined as Mainestra brassiae by Walker, may now figure as the 

 "type" of Acronycta cristifera, Walk., and the real type of the latter, 

 which I saw in its original place, may have become misplaced. 



In 1 88 1, before Mr. Butler had interfered with, or Prof. Smith had 

 seen the British Museum Collection, I examined the sole specimen and 

 apparent " type " of Acronycta cristifera, Walk. It was in fair condi- 

 tion, with clean cut wings and somewhat narrow and tufted body parts. 

 It belonged to a species unknown to me, of a seeming peculiar northern 

 type ; the specimen was labelled as from St. Martin's Falls, Hudson Bay. 

 I examined it carefully, and in my memory can see the specimen before 

 me now. It was a dark stone-gray species, the concolorous primaries 

 without any warm tinting shaded here and there with whitish, but quite 

 obscurely, and allowing the usual lines and narrowly outlined stigmata to 

 be clearly made out. The stigmata were defined and nearly concolorous, 

 not contrasting. The insect reminded me mostly of the species described 

 by Morrison as Acro?iycta aspera. I judged the specimen to have naked 

 eyes, but had no opportunity of verifying this. The hind wings were 

 concolorous, perhaps a little darker. There was not a trace of any 

 reddish-brown, or brighter shading or colour. The whole insect was of a 

 stony, somewhat fuscous or sordid dusty gray-hue. In my Illustrated 

 Essay I noted this examination of mine as follows: "The type from 

 Hudson Bay is not an Acronycta. The abdomen is tufted ; the species 

 is dark stone-grey, with kidney-shaped reniform, and seems a Hadenoid 

 form unknown to me," 1. c. 38. Under these circumstances I was greatly 

 surprised to find by Prof. Smith's Revision that Mr. Butler had referred 

 the specimen as belonging to Afamestra lubens ; still more so that Prof. 



