Februai-y, '17] AINSLEE: CRAMBID MOTHS 115 



these questions a series of night collections was made at the United 

 States Entomological Laboratory at Nashville, Tennessee, during 

 the summer of 1915. The moths of the subfamily Cramhince were 

 particularly studied. 



Concerning these moths Felt states,^ in giving the results from a 

 series of trap lanterns operated at Ithaca, New York, in 1889 and 

 1892, that "an examination of the record of any species . . . will 

 show that the greater number taken were males, except Crambus 

 laqueatellus where the females were in excess. If we accept the strong 

 probability that one male can fertilize several females the trap lantern 

 is of little value. . . . The females fly but little before most of 

 the eggs are laid, consequently the trap lantern as a practicable means 

 of checking the increase of these insects is of no value. " As an opposed 

 view Osborn says^ in speaking of Crambus vulgivagellus and exsiccatus, 

 now known as trisectus, "the moths are strongly attracted to light and 

 for exsiccatus at least, the attracted individuals are in large part females 

 loaded with eggs; so, for this species, there can be no question as to 

 the value of trap lights." 



At least fourteen species of the Cramhinm occur at Nashville and 

 first and last representatives of nearly all of them have been taken at 

 light. The great bulk of the material, however, was of Crambus 

 teterrellus, a very common and widely distributed species and it is to 

 this species that the data here given and the conclusions drawn directly 

 apply. The smaller amount of data obtained with other species 

 agrees on the whole with these conclusions and makes them applicable 

 to more than the single species. Indeed, it was found that the same 

 principles held good in the case of several species not Crambids, for 

 example, Nomophila noctuella, Acrolophus popeanella, Xanthoptera 

 nigrofimbria and Feltia subgothica and gladiaria, though the data 

 regarding these species are much more fragmentary and inconclusive 

 than with the Crambids. 



The collections were made at the strongly lighted windows of the 

 laboratory building and at my residence adjoining, one window of which 

 seemed particularly attractive to the moths. The lights were started 

 at dusk and the moths collected in vials as fast as they appeared. 

 Those taken during each 15-minute period were kept separate and the 

 sex of each individual determined. Collections were continued through- 

 out the night and until the lights ceased to attract because of the 

 brightening dawn. Generally one man could make the round of the 

 windows in the fifteen minutes but at times it required two or even 

 three to capture all the moths as fast as they appeared. On the night 



1 Cornell Bui. 64, p. 52. 



2 Insect Life, vol. VI, p. 72. 



