NO. l:?oi. BEVTSION OF AMERICAN aELErllUD MOTITS—BmCK. 779 



PALTODORA SIMILIELLA Chambers. 



Gelechia similieUa CiiAJiBEKy, Can. Ent., IV, 1872, p. 193. 



Gelechia solaniella Chambers, Can. Ent., YI, 1874, p. 242; Bull. IT. S. Geol. Snrv., 



Ill, 1877, p. 91; IV, 1878, pp. 91, 147. 

 (I'elerJila [Doryphora] piacipellis Zeller, Verh. k. k., zodl.-bot. dresell. Wien, 



XXIII, 1873, p. 277. 

 Oelechia piscipeUis Riley, Smith's Li^t Lep. Bor. Am., No. 5450, 1891. 

 Gelechia piscipalk Chambers, Bull. U. S. Geol. Rurv., IV, 1878, p. 145. 

 Paltodora similiella Busck, Dyar's List Amer. Lep., No. 5548, 190.'!. 

 Not Gelechia solaniella Chambers, Can. Ent., V, 1873, p. 176; Cinu. Qiuirt. Journ. 



Sci., II, 1875, p. 239; Can. Knt., IX, 1878, p. 51. 



This species has been quite troublesome to chnir, owiuo- to an erro- 

 neous determination l)y C'haml)ers and the subse([uent results of this 

 mistake. 



Only b}^ the kind help of Miss Mary Murtfeldfs personal recollec- 

 tion, and with all obtainable evidence carefully examined, did 1 feel 

 justified and confident in my conclusions in reg-ard to the above 

 synonomy. 



Later I have had the satisfaction to have them substantiated in part 

 through a letter from Lord Walsingham in the archives of the Divi- 

 sion of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



Chambers described^ a species as Oelechia slm/iUella. This was 

 the same species that Zeller subsequently described as piscipellis^ as 

 comparison of the original tj^DCS now in Cambridge, l^ut presented by 

 Chambers to the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem, shows, and 

 it is a true Paltodora. 



In 1ST3 Chambers received from Miss Murtfeldt a superficially sim- 

 ihir species, which she had reared from Bolanuin^ and believing it 

 (wrongly) to be simUiella Chambers, he changed that name to solaniella 

 and gave Solaniun carolinensis as its food plant, ^ and later he described 

 it'^ more fully and gave the life history in detail, still supposing it to 

 be his original similiella. 



Afterwards Miss Murtfeldt, unaware of this, described her species 

 as cinei'ella Murtfeldt, afterwards changing it to incoiispicuella., the 

 former name being preoccupied in Europe. 



It was, however, already described b}^ Zeller as Gelechia {Bryotropha) 

 (jhivldnelUi and belongs in Mr. Meja'ick's recent genus Phthorimaea. 

 (p. 82L) 



To enable me to draw these conclusions I have had the good fortune 

 to have the following authentic specimen for examination: 1. U. S. 

 National Museum, type, No. 459, Chambers type with his label: 

 Gelechia solaniella Chambers. This is identical with 2. the other 

 original t3q3e sent to Peabody Academy, Salem, now in Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, bearing Lord Walsingham's blue label. No. 992 

 and Chambers' label No. 37, each referring to respective lists of the 



'Can. Ent., IV, p. 193. ''Idem., V, 1873, p. 176. ^Misa Murtfeldt's species. 



