138 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 244 



mistakenly was accredited to the British fauna. Occasionally the fact 

 has emerged that material collected by John Abbott from Georgia 

 and sent to Francillon, a London dealer, sometimes was mislabelled 

 by the latter with the result that the insects later were described as 

 originating in England. Thus, there is a reasonable possibility that 

 the type locality of T. ephe'meraej'ormis is Georgia. Whatever the 

 case, the application of this name as it is presently recognized should 

 be retained because of its widely accepted usage. Because of the loss 

 of the type specimen, moreover, the name of this common American 

 insect probably will never be seriously challenged. 



Thyridopteryx pallidovenata was first described from Ft. Myers, 

 Florida. Its diagnostic features were its larger size and its supposedly 

 paler wing veins. In later years a belief developed that this insect 

 could be further separated from T. ephemeraeformis by the disjunct 

 populations of the two species: T. ephemeraeformis being limited in its 

 southward distribution to the extreme northern part of Florida and 

 T. pallidovenata occurring in only the southernmost portion of that 

 state. This misconception probably originated because more collect- 

 ing was done in southern Florida than in the central and northern 

 localities. Additional specimens gradually have accumulated which 

 show that T. ephemeraeformis is evenly distributed throughout the 

 state, as would be expected. Records from the Florida State Plant 

 Board list the occurrence of this species in approximately 19 different 

 counties with no concentration in any area. 



The wing veins of "typical" T. pallidovenata are no paler, on the 

 average, than those of specimens from a large series of T. ephemer- 

 aeformis. The "paleness" depends largely on the relative number of 

 intact scales present along the veins, a condition that is very variable. 



Specimens previously identified as T. pallidovenata from southern 

 Florida are, on the whole, larger than examples of T. ephemeraeformis 

 from more northern localities. There appears to be a gradual de- 

 crease in size from south to north, with some variation occurring at 

 all latitudes. The smallest (wing span 17.5 mm.) specimen examined 

 by the present writer came from New York. Specimens only slightly 

 more southern^ — from Delaware — attain a maximum expanse of 29 

 mm., which is as great as some Florida examples from Dade County. 

 The largest moth available in this study, from the Bahamas, meas- 

 ured 36 mm. across the primaries. As more collecting (especially in 

 Florida) is done, the supposed size difl'erence of T. pallidovenata 

 probably will have even less significance than it now has. For the 



