CLEAR-WING MOTHS OF FAMILY AEGERIIDAE 99 



Male. — Antennae bluish black, brown beneath, stout, strongly pectinate. 

 Labial palpus with a heavy brush in a tawny or sordid-white mixture, third 

 joint smooth, grayish black. Head tufted, blackish brown and white 

 mixed, eyes brown. Collar tawny, sordid white at the sides. Thorax 

 brown-black, thinly clothed with whitish hair; anterior edge with black 

 and tawny scales, a short, tawny stripe in the center and two lateral stripes 

 of the same color ending in a broader tuft at metathorax, which is long- 

 tufted at the sides and hairy centrally, tawny or sordid white ; underside 

 of thorax shiny black shingled with sordid-white scales; the bases of the 

 primaries similarly shingled. Abdomen lustrous bronzy brown, with gray- 

 ish suffusions; segments not banded; anal tuft large, fan-shaped, dull 

 black, tawny at the sides and beneath. Forelegs with coxae shiny buff and 

 sordid white; posterior tibiae very rough throughout, in color a grayish 

 mixture; tarsi concolorous, black, spined beneath. Forewing opaque, 

 streaked with brownish and sordid black, except for a small, more or less 

 suffused buff-colored area before the large sordid black discal mark ; costa, 

 outer and inner margins of a darker shade, fringes brownish black ; under- 

 side more pronounced tawny in color than upper surface. Hindwing 

 opaque, bright tawny, sprinkled with darker scales outwardly, above and 

 beneath; veins and discal mark rusty black. 



Female. — Antennae black, above and beneath. Labial palpus with short 

 brush, black throughout. Head black, face lustrous tawny. Collar black 

 with a few whitish hairs intermixed. Thorax violet-black, sometimes with 

 a faint central stripe and always with two broad, lateral stripes sordid 

 white; underside black. Abdomen shiny black, segment 2 banded with 

 white above; anal tuft short, black, with two white streaks, not reaching 

 to the end. Posterior tibiae rough, violaceous-black. Forewing opaque, 

 purplish black, thinly sprinkled with grayish scales on inner half to the 

 wing base and in a dense cluster before the black discal mark ; fringes 

 dull black; underside streaked with sordid white below the costa and 

 between the veins to inner margin. Hindwing opaque, wholly brownish 

 black, above and beneath. 



Expanse : Male 20 to 28 mm., female 27 to 36 mm. 



Distribution. — x\rid regions of western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. 



Type. — Lectotype female from Phoenix, Ariz. (Kuntze). In the 

 United States National Museum. 



Remarks. — Beutenmiiller's description of this remarkable species is not 

 based on the male, as stated, but on the female. The identity of the very 

 dissimilar sexes was established many years after the description of the 

 female in 1902. The type specimens were collected by Kuntze, a well- 

 known botanist and collector of insects, of Phoenix, Ariz., and subsequently 

 acquired by Charles Palm, of New York, for whom the species was named. 

 Favorite haunts of the insect are arid regions along river embankments and 

 irrigation ditches, where the food plants, species of Hytnenoclea (burro- 

 brush), attain a heavy rank growth, sometimes 10 feet tall and with 



