Moths 225 



The Sphinx moths of Colorado include several very hand- 

 some species of large size. Perhaps the most beautiful are the 

 two species of Smerinthus, known by the large eye-like spots on 

 the pink-flushed hind wings. The upper wings are variegated 

 with brown and gray, and when the moths are at rest, and the 

 hind wings concealed, they look very much like withered leaves. 

 In the larger of the two, S. cerisyi of Kirby, the black areas on 

 the hind wings are ornamented with pale bluish rings. In the 

 smaller, 5. jamaicensis, these rings are represented by a pair of 

 bluish spots. The name of the latter insect is unfortunate; the 

 English entomologist Drury thought that his specimen came 

 from the Island of Jamaica, where the species is never found. 

 The name once given cannot be altered, even though founded on 

 a mistake. The form of S. jamaicensis we have in Colorado 

 differs from that usual in the Eastern States by having a very 

 distinct Y-like (or gamma-like) mark on each anterior wing. It 

 has been named S. jamaicensis gamma. The type specimen on 

 which this race was named (now in the U. S. National Museum) 

 was found sitting on the knob of the door of Dr. Ramaley's office, 

 in the Hale Building of the University of Colorado. A related 

 moth, but the hind wings without pink, and a single pale bluish 

 spot on the black patch, is Calasymbolus my ops. Here again the 

 western form is distinct, and has been named C. myops occidentalis 

 by B. P. Clark. It is paler than the typical race. A very large 

 species, with a wing expanse of about four and three-quarters 

 inches, and a very thick body, is Pachysphinx modesta. The hind 

 wings are variably pink, but there is only a dark crescentic mark 

 instead of an ocellus. Tha larva feeds on cottonwood trees. Our 

 paler western form is called P. modesta occidentalis, but the insect 

 is variable, and Colorado specimens are not usually as pale as the 

 figure in Holland's Moth Book. Our commonest Sphinx moth, 

 to be seen hovering over flowers during the summer months, is 

 the white-lined Sphinx, Celerio lineata. The long pointed front 

 wings have an oblique light bar crossed by fine white lines, and 

 the hind wings are pink with black basal and marginal bands. 

 The great tobacco or tomato moths, with mottled wings and yellow 

 spots on each side of the abdomen, belong to two species. Proto- 

 parce quinquemaculata has the hind wings with a zigzag black line 

 on a light ground; in P. sexta the hind wings are dark, crossed by 



