1885.1 41 



NOTE ON" THE LEPIDOPTEROUS G-ENUS DOLESCHALLIA. 

 BY W. L. DISTANT. 



Considerable difficulty is, and has been, experienced in properly- 

 identifying some of the allied species of this genus. I have already 

 been enabled to publish some explanatory remarks on three species, viz., 

 D. Bisaltide, Cram., D. Fratipa, Eeld., and D. Polihite, Cram. (Ehop. 

 Malayana, p. 89) ; but as I find the question is still a complicated 

 one to some students, a few further remarks may not prove superero- 

 gatory. 



D. Bisaltide, Cram., is a rare species. The sexes — one of which 

 agrees perfectly with Cramer's figure — are in the British Museum, 

 and were Javan specimens in Horsfield's collection. Cramer gives 

 Surinam for the habitat, which is probably a clerical mistake for 

 Sumatra. 



D. Pratipa, Feld., is closely allied to D. Bisaltide, and is recorded 

 from Tenasserim, the Malay Peninsula and Java. It is probably 

 common to the Indo-Malayan region. 



D. Polilete, Cram., is the species that has caused the greatest 

 perplexity, and this is owing to Cramer having figured two distinct 

 species as the sexes of one. We must take his first figure (Pap. Ex., 

 iii, t. 234, D.E.) as having priority, and fixing the type. This, as I 

 have pointed out, is quite distinct from the other two species, and is 

 very similar in appearance in both sexes. The British Museum con- 

 tains examples from Silhet, Moulmein, Java, Borneo, and the Philip- 

 pine Islands ; my own collection contains specimens from the Andaman 

 Islands and Java. But Cramer's second figure (Pap. Ex., iii, t. 235, 

 CD.) represents the male of a very distinct Amboinese species, the 

 sexes of which, collected by Mr. Eorbes, I have recently acquired. 



This has caused the puzzle to Lepidopterists, and as the species 

 from Amboina is thus shown to be without a specific name, I propose 

 that it shall be termed Doleschallia Crameri. 



1, Russell Hill Road, Purley, Surrey : 

 June, 1885. 



Note on a strange food of the larva of E-pTiestia eluteUa. — In the same journal 

 above mentioned, p. 59, J. Frivaldszky states that since 1879 he has had a bottle 

 containing red pepper (Capsicum annuum) in powder, well closed with stout paper; 

 that having opened it in the summer of 1884, he was very surprised to find a small 

 caterpillar partly immersed in the red powder, and covered with a fine network of 

 slight filaments. The larva soon transformed, and from the pupa emerged Ephestia 

 elutella, Hvib. — Eds. 



