48 BULLETIN 190, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



tibiae mostly black, a few tawny-yellow scales at and between the spurs. 

 Otherwise like the male. 



Expanse : Male 17 to 20 mm., female 18 to 22 mm. 



Distribution. — Savannah, Ga. ; Georgiana, Palm Beach County, Fla. ; 

 Mobile, Ala. 



Type. — One female in the Oberthiir collection, acquired by William 

 Barnes and now in the United States National Museum, labeled "Sesia 

 anthracipennis Bdv., type, a/c Hofer." Also attached are labels: "ex 

 Musaeo Boisduval, Oberthur collection," and a handwritten label : "Re- 

 ceived Sept. 1882 from Mr. Edwards, Ch. Ob." The example conforms to 

 Boisduval's description. 



Remarks. — This insect is recorded first by a hand-painted water- 

 color figure in John Abbot's "Insects of Georgia," published in 17 

 volumes beginning in 1792 and preserved in the library of the British 

 Museum of Natural History. Fourteen species of Aegeriidae arc 

 illustrated in this work, 13 in volume 7, and 1 in volume 17. All can 

 be easily determined. The text supplies dates and place of capture but 

 does not name the species. A good figure is given of a male anthraci- 

 pennis named and described by Boisduval, 1875, in volume 7, page 34. 

 The text states that it "lives on a species of Salix." This signifies merely 

 a capture, not the food plant, which is not willow. Abbot collected at 

 or near Savannah. 



A second female from the Oberthiir collection is labeled "Georgiana." 

 This should be in Palm Beach County, Fla., where W. Witfeld, the 

 collector, resided about 1880. No additional specimens are recorded 

 until September and October 1927, when the species was collected in 

 numbers near Mobile, Ala., by Thos. S. Van Aller. Other collections 

 have been recorded subsequently. The obvious resemblance and kin- 

 ship of anthracipennis to sanhorni and morula was confirmed by finding 

 that it shares the same food plants and habits as a root borer in species 

 of Lacinaria (blazing-star) growing in dry, sandy soil, not in swampy 

 places. The moths frequent flowers, showing preference for late-blooming 

 Compositae. The principal time of emergence in the South is September 

 and October. C. a. sanhorni in temperate and northern zones emerges 

 in July and August. 



Rules of priority in nomenclature dictate the rank of a species for antJira- 

 cipennis, a form restricted to a narrow coastal belt in the South, while 

 .<!anborni, widely distributed over temperate and boreal zones, must be rele- 

 gated to the rank of race. 



CARMENTA ANTHRACIPENNIS race SANHORNI Hy. Edwards 



Plate 19, Figure 111 



Carmenta sanhorni Hy. Edwards, Papilio, vol. 1, p. 185, 1881. — Beutenmuller, Bull. 

 Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist, vol. 4, p. 175, 1892; vol. 8, p. 147, 1896; Afem. Amer. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 311, pi. 32, fig. 17, 1901. 



