Noctuidae 
resembles in the markings of the fore wings, by its smaller 
size and the white hind wings. It ranges from Canada to 
Virginia and westward to the Rocky Mountains. - The caterpillar 
lives upon alder, willow, and birch. 
(3) Apatela populi Riley, Plate XVIII, Fig. 14, $ (The 
Cottonwood Dagger-moth.) 
The moth, of which we reproduce the figures of the larva and 
imago given by Professor Riley, who first described the species, 
ranges from Canada to the 
western parts of the Carolinas, 
thence across the continent to 
the Pacific coast, avoiding the 
warmer regions of the Gulf 
States and southern California. 
The imago is discriminated from 
Apatela lepusculina Guenee by 
the broader wings, especially of 
the female, by the paler ground- 
color of the primaries, and by the absence of the orbicular 
spot, which is very rarely as conspicuous as it appears in 
the figure given by Riley, and still further by the very short 
basal dash on the 
fore wings, which 
in A. lepusculina is 
long, reaching out¬ 
wardly as a sharply 
defined black line 
one-third of the 
length of the cell. 
The larva is also quite 
different in impor¬ 
tant particulars from 
that of the species, 
which has been 
named, but with 
which this species is 
often confounded in 
collections. The caterpillar feeds upon the foliage of different 
species of the genus Populus, and is particularly common in the 
Fig. 86. —Apatela populi, larva. 
(After Riley.) 
(After Riley.) 
154 
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