1'68 BULLETIN 190, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Albuna fraxini Beutenmuller, Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 275, 

 pi. 30, fig. 12 (male), 1901. — McDunnough, Check list of the Lepidoptera of 

 Canada and the United States of America, pt. 2, No. 8790, 1939. 



Male. — Antennae pale yellow, shaded with black above on basal half and 

 at apices; finely bipectinate and rufous between. Labial palpus smooth, 

 pale yellow at base, black at the sides and toward the tip. Head and 

 occipital fringe black. Collar black with a whitish patch at the sides. 

 Thorax black; tegulae violaceous, a narrow pale-yellow strip at the sides 

 from wing base to the collar ; metathorax fringed with white at the sides 

 and beneath. Abdomen wholly black above, dusted with white centrally 

 beneath; anal tuft black, broadly fan-shaped or divided into two parts. 

 Legs black; posterior tibiae with spurs pale yellow, posterior tarsus with 

 first joint above black, posterior joints sordid pale yellow, above and 

 beneath. Forewing nearly opaque, purplish black; two hyaline streaks 

 before and behind cubitus to wing base ; discal mark red of varying in- 

 tensity; area beneath costa and the basal half touched with pale yellow; 

 discal mark more conspicuously red. Hindwing transparent ; discal mark, 

 narrow margin, and broad fringes purplish black. 



Female. — Body more robust. Antennae simple, basal half and apices 

 black above and beneath, bright pale yellow on apical half before apices. 

 Labial palpus wholly black. Thorax, legs, and abdomen all black. Seg- 

 ment 4 of abdomen, except above, sometimes edged with pale yellow, more 

 broadly so at the sides than beneath ; anal tuft short, blunt. Forewing 

 wholly opaque or with a short hyaline streak basally ; discal mark more 

 conspicuously red than in the male. Hindwing transparent, margins and 

 fringes broader, violaceous-black. 



Expanse : Male 24 to 26 mm., female 25 to 27 mm. 



Distribution. — Eastern and Central United States and Rocky Mountain 

 regions of Colorado and Montana. 



Type. — Male. In the American Museum of Natural History. 



Remarks. — Structural similarity places this very distinct species with 

 pyramidalis in the genus Albuna. It is a root borer in the Virginia-creeper, 

 Parthenocissiis quinquejolia, and was reared in numbers by Alexander K. 

 Wyatt, Emil Beer, and V. G. Vasco, of Chicago, 111., from material col- 

 lected at Willow Springs, 111., August 1919, and from Devils Lake, Wis., 

 August 12, 1923. From root cuttings, submitted to the writer, additional 

 specimens were obtained, all einerging during August. Other records of 

 captured specimens from midwestern and Eastern States are : One female, 

 Watkins Glen, N. Y. (Mrs. A. T. Slosson) ; one female. La Fayette, Ind., 

 July 22, 1918; one female, Amherst, Ohio, July 1933 (H. G. Reinhard) ; 

 one male, Ogdensburg, N. J., July 10, 1922 (E. L. Bell) ; one male. Squaw 

 River, Allegheny County, Pa., August 9, 1923 ; one male, Riley County, 

 Kans. (A. G. Dean) ; one male, Oconee, 111., July 22, 1931. Another 

 series in the United States National Museum was collected by E. J. 

 Oslar, of Denver, Colo., in Turkey Creek Canyon, Colo., 8,000 feet, 



