CLEAR-WING MOTHS OF FAMILY AEGERIIDAE 191 



(O. C. Poling) ; San Diego, Calif., female (C. V. Riley) ; Los Angeles, 

 Calif. (Coquillett) ; Phoenix, Ariz., female (J. Frank Meador) ; St. 

 George, Washington County, Utah, female. Transition forms, Globe, 

 Ariz., August 4, 1937, males and females (Engelhardt) ; Willcox, Ariz., 

 September 14, 1935 (F. H. Parker) ; Cochise County, Ariz., 3,750 

 feet (F. H. Snow). 



MELITTIA MAGNIFICA BeutenmuUer 



Melitlla magnifica Beutenmuller, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 12, p. 151, 

 1899; Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 236, pi. 29, fig. 5 (female), 

 1901. — McDuNNOUGH, Check list of the Lepidoptera and the United States of 

 America, pt. 2, No. 8782, 1939. 



Female. — Antennae simple, blue-black, ferruginous toward the tips be- 

 neath. Labial palpus orange, extreme tip black. Thorax steel blue, tipped 

 with orange on each side posteriorly. Abdomen metallic steel-blue-black, 

 above and beneath. The anterior and middle legs steel-blue-black (hind 

 pair lacking). Forewing bright steel-blue-black, with the inner part 

 broadly light orange, the light area covering more than half the width of 

 the wings to a little beyond the middle, where it curves downward to a 

 point touching the hind angle ; fringes light orange. Hindwing deep orange 

 above and below ; underside orange with outer fourth black ; fringes 

 orange. 



Expanse : 42 mm. 



Distribution. — Austin, Tex. 



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



Remarks. — This species is represented by only the unique female type. 

 Its indicated habitat, Austin, Tex., seems open to question. Especial 

 attention has been given to this and other regions in Texas in a search 

 for borers in cucurbit plants. Nothing approaching magnifica has been 

 found in the State. Beutenmiiller obtained the specimen from the late 

 Josef Mattes, a collector of Lepidoptera and by vocation a painter and 

 decorator, who loved bright, showy insects and freely exchanged for 

 exotic species, but was careless about locality and date labels. Prior to 

 coming to New York he had lived in Austin, Tex., and thought the type 

 of magnifica, which bore no label, must have been collected there. This 

 is probably erroneous. It does not fit in the North American fauna but 

 displays a closer affiliation with species from South America. I have 

 not attempted to determine it as a previously de.scribed South American 

 species because of its imperfect condition. 



THE BEMBECIA GROUP 

 Genus BEMBECIA Hubner 



Plate 3, Figure 24; Plate 12, Figures 55, 55a; Plate 16, Figure 85 



Bemhecia Hubner, Verzeichniss bekannter Schmetterlinge, p. 128, 1819. (Genotype, 

 Sesia hylaeiformis Laspeyres, Europe.) 



