snow: cnephalia and its allies. 185 



are at best of secondary importance in the separation of species, and 

 inconsequential in the extreme in the separation of genera. The 

 character derived from the length of the claws must also be used 

 with very great caution. 



On such inadetjuate characters many genera have been established 

 by recent authors. As a result a beginner is often in doubt whether 

 he has before him a male and female of a species of Phorocera, or 

 CnepJialia for example, or has representatives of two different genera 

 belonging to two subfamilies. 



EUCNEPHALIA. 



The genus Encnep/ia/ia Towns., placed in the " Phoraceratinte " by 

 the author, probably belongs to this group, as suspected by Brauer and 

 Bergenstamm. The typ especies, ^onioides, differs from other species. 

 of the group which I have seen in its short proboscis, furnished with 

 rather thick labellse. Its first abdominal segment bears a pair of 

 strong marginal bristles; the third antennal joint is at least four 

 times as long as the second; the second aristal joint is hardly 

 two times as long as it is wide. The bristles of the facial ridges 

 ascend a little above the middle of the face. The ocellar bristles. 

 are reclinate. 



AOROGLOSSA. 



The genus Acroglossa Williston * has been confounded with Spall- 

 anzania by Messrs. Brauer and Bergenstamm f who have misunder- 

 stood the direction of the ocellar bristles in the figure given by the 

 author. They are directed forward and outward in both sexes, as 

 stated in the description. Giglio-Tos| has recently described a Mex- 

 ican species, which he refers to Acroglossa. It is interesting to note 

 that the ocellar bristles in his species are proclinate. Brauer and 

 Bergenstamm's further statement (1. c): " The genus cannot be com- 

 pared with Fontina on account of the lack of ascending bristles on 

 the facial ridges," is also expressly contradicted in both description 

 and plate. It is therefore evident that these last named authors had 

 no example of the genus before them. Had they had specimens with 

 proclinate bristles, so great is their respect for this character, they 

 would certainly have located the genus in another group. 



In the Townsend Collection is a specimen of Cnephalia ruficauda 

 Towns, bearing Prof. Townsend's label '■'Acroglossa hespcridaruin 

 Williston" and the locality label "Riley Co., Kans." It is doubtless 

 the one spoken of by him in Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. xviii, p. 367, as. 



* Scudciers Butterflies of New England, p. 1916. 



t L. c Par-s. ii, p. 3.51. 



% Ditt. del Messico, Pars, iii, 1894, p. 34, 



