TiR^isrs^OTionxrs 



OF THE 



AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



VOLUME IV. 



On the North American Species of CATOCAL.A. 



BY AUG. R. GROTE. 



The present paper is a mere outline of one in which all the North 

 American species, known to me belonging to the genus Catocala, were 

 fully and comparatively described, and of which paper I have been so 

 unfortunate as to lose the manuscript in transportation. The material 

 on which my MS. was based is now in part inaccessible to me, having 

 been returned to various collections. I remember to have pointed out 

 in my lost MSS., that, although well represented in both Europe and 

 Asia, the genus seemed to have its largest representation in North Amer- 

 ica and to attain with us its fullest developement. Here we have a 

 number of species in which tbe hind wings are wholly black above, such 

 as C. epione, C. viduata, C. tristis; species which have no described 

 analogues in other countries. Again, we have a little Group (Corisce, 

 Hiibrier) comprising species without the usual black median band on 

 the hind wings above; little species with yellow secondaries and pecu- 

 liar in appearance, but which seem to offer no structural characters on 

 which to separate them generically. Geographically considered the 

 genus belongs to the Northern Hemisphere. 



I treated at some length the structure of the genus and dwelt on the 

 ornamentation. It suffices me now to point out that while the prima- 

 ries above offer the normal lines and enclosed spots common to the 

 Noctuidae, that the median space shows in addition a ringed spot, the 

 subreniform, beneath the reniform spot. I have found by the study 

 of such species as C. piatrix, that this spot is in reality a part of the 

 transverse posterior line which is here inwardly inflected. And al- 

 though the subreniform is more frequently a perfectly isolated and 

 independent annulus, when also the t. p. line is continuous and unin- 



TRANS. AMER. ENT. SOC. IV. (1) JANUARY, 1872. 



