38 BULLETIN 190, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



examples and black and yellow on pale specimens. The marginal border 

 of the hindwing narrowly lined, red and black or yellow and black ; the 

 fringes sordid black. Abdominal segments 2, 4, 5, and 6 broadly banded, 

 1 and 3 narrowly orange or yellow ; the short, blunt, anal tuft yellow with 

 a black central mark on top. 



Expanse : Male and female, 22 to 26 mm. 



Distribution. — Coastal and movmtain regions, California. 



Cotypes. — R. mellinipennis, two males, lost but figured by Boisduval. 

 Types of Albuna artemisiae, male, and Aegeria senecioides, male, in the 

 American Museum of Natural History. 



Remarks. — With only the types and few old specimens available for ex- 

 amination, I am doubtful about Beutenmiiller's conclusions in placing 

 arteinisiae and senecioides as synonyms of mellinipennis but have not ven- 

 tured to change them. Structurally these forms certainly are congeneric. 

 Additional material and information will be necessary before it can be 

 determined if they are entitled to specific or subspecific rank. 



Hy. Edwards's t3'pe of Albuna resplendens is a female, not a male, fig- 

 ured by Beutenmiiller as a color form of inellinipennis (Monograph of the 

 Sesiidae of America north of Mexico, Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 

 1, pt. 6, pi. 31, fig. 27, 1901). The specimen is contrastingly lemon yellow 

 on the forewings instead of bright orange, expressing perhaps a color 

 phase in the northern range of the species at Soda Springs, Siskiyou 

 Countv, Calif. Hy. Edwards also included two females from Sierra Ne- 

 vada, Calif. (S. Brannon). in his type series of Albmna resplendens, 

 American Museum of Natural History. The two examples are females 

 of bibionipennis. 



The names senecioides and artemisiae do not imply actual food plants, 

 merely plants on which specimens were collected, as do so many of the 

 names used by Hy. Edwards. The latter differs from mellinipennis in the 

 main by the broader and greenish-black costa and the darker scaling be- 

 tween the veins on the outer margin. The only available male example of 

 senecioides, from Durango, Colo., is labeled "compared with type, Wm. 

 Barnes." It lacks antennae ; otherwise it agrees better with arisonensis 

 Beutenmiiller, which has red-brown antennae, black at the tips. The 

 antennae of mellinipennis are black throughout. 



The food plant and larval habits of mellinipennis are recorded by F. X. 

 Williams (Ent. News, vol. 20, p. 58, 1909). He found the larvae boring 

 in the solid wood and pupae in silk-lined cocoons under bark on the large, 

 decumbent trunk of Ceanofhus thyrsiflorus in a canyon south of Carmel, 

 Monterey County, Calif. From a sawed-oiif section of the tree three moths 

 emerged during August 1909. To this record I can add the occurrence of 

 the insect under similar conditions attacking old, decadent trees of Ceano- 

 thus thyrsiflorus in suburban regions of San Francisco. The lack of 

 proper cutting implements prevented securing tree sections suitable for 



