REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I47 



Ormerod: 17th Rept. Inj. Ins., 1894, pp. 15, 18 (reference). 

 OsBORN-SiRRiNE: in Bull. 23 lo. Agr. Expt. Stat., 1894, pp. 883-885, 



fig. 4 (in Iowa, remedies). 

 CoMSTOCKS: Man. Study Insects, 1895, p 233, fig. 278 (brief mention). 

 Davis: in Expt. Station Recoril, vi, 1895, p. 649 (brief, remedies, 



as Asopia). 

 Meyrick; Handbook Brit. Lepid., 1895, p- 427 (character, distribution). 

 HoPKiNS-RuMSEY : Bull. 44 W. Va. Agr. Expt. Stat., 1896, pp. 267, 311 



(description, remedies, brief). 



A correspondent from Sherwood, Cayuga Co., N. Y., has sent me, 



through the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, 



under date of February 11, 1893, a package with the statement: 



Inclosed you will find specimens of what I take to be empty cocoons 

 found in great abundance near the bottom of a stack of clover hay. I 

 would hke to know the name and history of the life of the insect making 

 the same. 



The specimens are the cocoons of the clover-hay moth, crushed in 

 their packing. They appear as thin snow-white webs, about half an inch 

 long, intermixed with many black grains which are the excremental pellets 

 of the caterpillars, and with a few brown head-cases of the same which 

 were thrown off at their change to the pupal stage. At this time some 

 of the cocoons, if not crushed, should have contained living pupae. 



An European Insect. 



The insect was described by Fabricius over a hundred years ago 

 from European examples as Phalcena cos talis. It has been referred to the 

 genus Pyralis by our more recent writers. For a long time" it was known 

 as Asopia costalis in this country, while in Europe, Pyralis costalis appears 

 to have been preferred by most writers ; Humphreys, however, in his 

 " Genera of British Moths," referred the insect to the genus Hypsopygea. 



Characters of the Pyralidae. 



The family of Pyralidce, to which this insect belongs, comprises a large 

 number of moths of small or medium size, which may often be recognized 

 by their long and slender legs, slender bodies, and wings arranged when 

 at rest in a triangle like the Greek letter delta. Many of the species 

 haunt meadows and grassy places, where they are frequently quite in- 

 jurious. 



