46 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



EUROPEAN WRITERS ON NORTH AMERICAN MOTHS. 



BY A. R. GROTE. 



For more tlian twenty years I have been endeavoring to complete the 

 synonymy of our moths, and to find out what species were covered by 

 Walker's and Guenee''s descriptions. During this time I have made three 

 trips to Europe, with this object more or less directly in view. Com- 

 paratively few of M. Guenee's species remain unknown to me ; and as 

 many of these were collected by Doubleday, the types will probably be 

 found in the British Museum. Mr. Guenee's descriptions of species are 

 good, and among the best extant, but he does not give structural char- 

 acters. The microscope was not used by him. His genera contained 

 incongruous material. When he had a species that he did not know what 

 to do with, instead of making a new genus for it, which would have 

 assisted the identification of the species, he often made a group of it, 

 under a genus to which it was opposed in every structural feature — and 

 the species in this way was readily over-looked. As, for instance, Leticania 

 Litter a. 



Mr. Walker's descriptions are entirely misleading, because his types 



prove that he made no serious study at all of the matter. No system 



whatever has been followed by him in locating his material ; not even 



casual resemblance has been used as a guide. In my last work on the 



Noctuidce, written in London, and with Mr. Walker's collection before me, 



I became satisfied that it would take over a year's steady work, glass in 



hand, to settle all the questions raised by his determinations. Not only 



have his types to be gone over with his descriptions, but his identifications 



of Guenee''s species have to be compared with that author's writings. 



Although in Guenee's genera, such as Hadena, Leucania, Apleda, Mam- 



estra, species with naked or hairy eyes, spined or unspined legs, etc., are 



thrown indiscriminately together, yet some sort of system, i. e., casual 



resemblance, and often a knowledge of the larva, has been recognized in 



his work. All this is wanting in Mr. Walker's work ; the specimens 



appear to have been described just as they came along. I'he genus 



Bryophila is not very hard to recognize ; the species are slender bodied 



with liattened scales on the tliorax ; yet Mr. Walker describes three 



Americart species under this genus all different generically, and none 



belonging to Bryophila. Species belonging to Agrotis are described by 



him, up and down all over the family under all sorts of genera. Some of 



