192 BULLETIN 38, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Carneacles tessellata Harris. 



1845. Harris, Rept. Ins. Mass., Agrolis. 

 1860. Harris, luj. Ins. Flint ed., 445, Agrotis. 



1877. Grt., Ball. Geol. Smrv., in, l\S, Agrotis. 

 1883. Sauud., Frnit Insects, 328, f. 340, Agrotis. 



maizl Fitch. 

 185G. Fitch, 2d Rept. Ins. N. Y., 313, J^/rofis. 

 1865. Fitch, 'Jth Rept. Ins. N. Y., 237-249, pi. 4, f. 2, f. 3, Agrotis. 

 1874. Grote, Can.Eut., VI, 118, pr. syn. 



1878. Lintn., Eut. Cont., iv. 122, pr. syn. 



nigricaiisl Riley. 

 1869. Riley, 1st Rept. Ins. Mo., 87, Agrotis. 



atropurpnrea Grt. 

 1877. Grt., Bull. Gool. Surv., iii, 118, Agrolis. 



Ash gray to dark red brown, irrorate with black, the vestituretough, 

 squammose. Transverse lines as iu mHujiiata but less distinct and finer. 

 S. t. line usually distinct, yel lowisli, sinuate, often preceded by a 

 darker shade, the terminal space darker. Olaviform faintly marked. 

 Ordinary spots usually well sized, powdered with gray or yellow ; or- 

 bicular often small, round ; reniform powdery, often obscured by a dusky 

 shade. Secondaries fuscous, paler toward base. Beneath, as in insig- 

 nafa. 



Expands 32-35"""; 1.25-1.40 inches. 



Habitat — Canada and United States. 



Compared with insignata, this species differs in the less even squam- 

 mose vestiture of i)rimaries ; the color also less clear and definite. 

 The cell is not so distinctly black, and the ordinary spots are pow- 

 dery. While it is difiticult to locate the difference, yet the distinctness 

 of this form is at once obvious. 



Mr. Grote's variety atropii.r'piirea is based upon the merest difference 

 iu shade and is a pure synonym. 



There is a considerable amount of variation in this species, and ex- 

 actly where it ends 1 can not yet say. It is not impossible that of the 

 Californian forms some may yet be considered worthy of a specific name. 

 Several specimens were in a lot received from Mr. Edwards, all from 

 the Sierra Nevada, California, and which I separated at first under the 

 term intrusa. More careful comparisons and studies lead me to the be- 

 lief that we have to do with a variety of tissellata, merely differing 

 from the eastern form principally in a distinct reddish suffusion of the 

 primaries, and an infusion of yellow into the secondaries. Tiie cell be- 

 tween the ordinary spots is not so distinctly black in some specimens, 

 and in these the median shade is somewhat more apparent, one speci- 

 men showing quite a strong resemblance to the messoria forms. The 

 term intrusa may be used to denote this reddish powdered form with 

 the ordinary spots pale and contrasting, the head and collar distinctly 

 more reddish. The size and other characters resemble the type. Speci- 

 mens of this form labeled intrusa m. are in the collection of Rutgers 



