42 JOHN B. SMITH. 



Hub. — Canada to District of Columbia, west to Colorado. Canada 

 in Sept. ; Northern New York in Oct. ; Westchester Co., N. Y.,Sept. 

 Except for the variation in size this species differs little. There 

 is a difference in the amount of the purplish shading, particularly 

 beyond the t. p. line. There is also some difference in the amount 

 of contrast and in the amount of powdering in the median space, 

 but in other respects it runs remarkably constant. Except for the 

 species of economic importance this seems to be the most common 

 of the lot, and is most generally represented in collections. The 

 male structures are typical of this section of the genus. The tri- 

 angular tip is well set with spinules, and the long curved clasper 

 has the edges distinctly irregular. 

 !!,> «lr«iM'hi impeciiiiiosa. Grote. 



1881. — Grote. Bull. Geol. Surv., vi, 2(37. Gortyna. 



1882.— Grote, Can. Ent., xiv. 184, Gortyna. 



1893.— Smith, Bull. 44 U. S. Nat. Mus., 176, Hydrcecia. 

 Ground color a powdery, rusty red-brown, more or less shaded with purplish. 

 Head and thorax very strongly shaded. Primaries with the extreme base of the 

 ground color to the geminate basal line. T. a line outwardly bent between the 

 veins, as a whole upright to the submedian vein, then with a long outcurve to 

 the inner margin. Above the submedian vein the basal space, except within the 

 basal line, is purplish. T. p. line geminate, unusually close to the outer margin, 

 the inner line very feebly developed and hardly distinguishable in some speci- 

 mens; the outer broad and distinct, very strongly bent below the costa and then 

 running almost parallel with the outer margin and inwardly oblique to the 

 hinder margin. S. t. line, yellowish, defined chiefly by the difference between 

 the purplish s. t. space and the less powdery terminal space. The. apex of the 

 palest ground color. Fringes purplish. The median shade is unusually pronii- 

 Dent, blackish or very dark purplish brown, almost rectangularly bent below the 

 reniform. The ordinary spots are well defined, but not white marked. Orbicu- 

 lar small, round, with a central brown dot, else of the palest ground color. Reni- 

 form moderate or rather small in size, only a little constricted in the center, with 

 the usual central lunule. but otherwise without powdering. The claviforni is 

 double, as usual, of the palest ground color and without powdering in the speci- 

 mens before me. Beneath powdery, shaded with purplish, with a broad, common 

 outer line and a fairly well-marked discal lunule on both wings. Expanse 

 1.20-1.50 in.; 30:!7 mm. 



Hab. — -Massachusetts; New York; New Hampshire; Illinois. 

 Ithaca, N. Y., October 6th ; Amherst, Mass., September 20th ; 

 Champaign, 111., at electric light, September 27-28th. 



This is a rare species apparently, and I have seen only four speci- 

 mens in which, fortunately, both sexes are represented. The spe- 

 cies is quite markedly distinct by the unusually pointed primaries. 

 They are really acute, and as a whole are rather narrower than 

 those of the other species immediately allied to them. In the male 

 the sexual pieces offer nothing that is peculiar. 



