88 Journal Xevv York Entomological Society. [Vol. xix. 



ON XANTHCECIA BUFFALOENSIS GRT. AND 

 PAPAIPEMA LATIA STRK. 



By Henry Bird, 

 Rye, N. Y. 



But few of the noctuid moths described by Grote from the eastern 

 United States have seemed more elusive or entirely submerged in 

 oblivion since being first exploited than Xantluvcia huffaloensis. ' De- 

 scribed by him in 1877 (Can. Ent., IX, 88) the single example con- 

 stituting his type was ultimately deposited in the British Museum and 

 American students generally were unfamiliar with its exact habitus. 

 Until the appearance of Hampson's Catalogue, Vol. IX, 1910, the 

 species had never been figured and as it was known to approach a 

 certain section of the numerous Papaipona group, left an uncertainty 

 which its further non-appearance failed to excite. The type example 

 is presumed to have been a capture at light, but if bred no refer- 

 ence was made to the fact or to the food-plant. Its larva is beyond 

 question a borer in some herbaceous stem or root, with a habit and 

 life cycle similar to the Papaipema larva, and when the writer's inves- 

 tigations of the latter led to Buffalo, X. Y., the type locality of huffa- 

 loensis, this species was kept particularly in mind. While another 

 Grote species, P. nccopina, described from this locality in 1876 and 

 long misunderstood, was found to be flourishing in larval abundance, 

 no sign or intimation of huffaloensis could be detected. Grote had 

 described the species under the generic group Ochria, associating 

 with it his species sauzcclita from California and considered them 

 congeneric with O. flavago of Europe. In Hampson's recent studies 

 the new genus Xanthoccia has been created for huffaloensis and 

 flavago, their form of thoracic cresting and tuberculate frons differ- 

 ing from cither Papaipema or Hydraccia, which have the head smooth 

 in front. Flavago seems to be common and widely distributed, has 

 been known for a century, and its list of food-plants includes Carduus, 

 Arctium, Verbascuni, Artemisia, etc. Such a list gives little clue, if 

 an analogy be drawn with Papaipema, for it would suggest that such 

 cosmopolitan weeds are those used by the latter when a substitute 

 becomes necessary for their preferred, indigenous food-plant. The 

 very rarity of huff'aloensis might argue that it does not make a choice 



