RILEY NOTES ON THE YUCCA BORER. 337 



with loose and very large scales, and the hind-wings invariably 

 armed, at costal base, with the long stout spine, or spring, which 

 serves to lock the wings in flight by hooking in a sort of socket 

 beneath the primaries, and which is so characteristic of the Hete- 

 rocera. The venation resembles more nearly that of the Hepia- 

 lians, and is totally unlike that of the Hesperians. The veins are 

 slender: in the primaries la and 5 are as stout as the rest; the 

 discal cell is short, connected transversely with 3 and with an 

 areolet above : in the secondaries the cell is nearly obsolete, and 

 the independent or vein 5 of secondaries is as stout as the others. 

 (Comp. Fig. 30 a, b, with Fig. 31.) The antennae, though thickened 

 at tip, are generally long and more or less 

 supple, and there are two distinct ocelli be- 

 tween the eyes, behind the antennae. The 

 Castnians vary much in general appearance, 

 but, whether we deal with the Brazilian Cast- 

 nia Linns (Cram.) with its narrow, elongate, 

 rounded, clear-spotted wings, and its remark- 

 ably elongate and swollen basal joint of the 

 middle tarsi ; or with C. Licus (Cram.) which 

 has broad, angular wings ; or with the genera 

 Ceretes, Ort/iia, Gazera, and Synemon — we 

 Venati L D rif (Fit")* Pha " find the characters above mentioned constant : 

 they are typical of the Family and are Heterocerous characters. 

 Tuccce, on the contrary, has none of these characters ; but in the 

 smaller wings, in their venation, in the closeness of the small and 

 narrow scales and hairiness at base, in having no ocelli, and in 

 the unarmed secondaries, entirely agrees with the Hesperians.* 

 I attach much less importance to the antennas, size of head and 

 body, or even the spurs of tibiae ; because they are all more varia- 

 ble. Thus, while most of the Castnians have the antennal club 

 tipped with a spine or a bunch of bristles, others (e.g. Castnia 

 Orestes, Walker, from Surinam) have it of the same shape as in 

 Yucca, and unarmed, or even more short and blunt (Synemon 



* These views were communicated to my friend Mr. Scudder during the first week ia 

 December, and were by him brought before the entomological section of the Bost. Soc. Nat. 

 Hist, on the ?2nd of the mo.:th. On the 26th of the same month I received from Mr. Kirbjr 

 the copy, published in the Appendix, of Felder's description of JEgiale Kollari, and the 

 opinion that its affinities are Hesperian. JEgiale is so near Mtgathymus that the simi- 

 larity of Felder's views and of my own, independently arrived at as they were, is grati- 

 fying. 



iii— 22 [Mar. 23, 1S70.] 



