II ESPERIDAE : PAMPIIILIDI. 1861 



The only specimens at hand of this genus being imperfect, I am unable to character- 

 ize it as fully as I should otherwise have done. Still fewer points could have been 

 touched upon, but for the generosity of the Rev. Dr. Holland in lending ni(' the 

 type of Ilesperia oniaha. 



This is a small group of Pamphilidi composed of three or four species, 

 all of which appear to be very rare, and almost nothing is known to me of 

 their distribution and nothing of their history. They occur in westei-n 

 America from California and Colorado to, or nearly to, the Isthmus of 

 Panama, and have also been taken on the Atlantic slope in the middle 

 United States. They resemble not a little certain Australian types, but 

 I have not Ijeen able to make a sufficient study of tlieir structure. 



POTANTHUS OMAHA. 



Ilesperia oraaha Edw., Proc. eut. soc. Araer., 49 (1S77) ;— French, Butt. east.U. S., 



Philad., ii : 21 (1803). 300-301 (1886). 



PoJa)UA?(SO)Hrt/ja Soudd., Syst. rev. Amer- Hesjieria mingo Edw., Proc. ent. soc 



butt., 54(1872). Phi]ad.,vi: 207 (1866). 



Carterocephalus omaha Edw., Cat. Lep. 



Imago. Head covered above with tawny and black hairs intemiingled, tawny only 

 in front; antennae blackish brown, annulate with tawny beneath, the whole under sur- 

 face and the apical half of the club tawny. 



Fore xoinrjs tawny, marked with very dark maroon brown ; there is, especially, a long 

 and broad, longitudinal belt, following the under surface of the median nervure as far 

 as the tip of the cell, and just not reaching the inner border next the base ; at its upper 

 outer limit it is overlapped by another longitudinal belt occupying the base of the inter- 

 spaces beyond the cell, infringing slightly upon the cell itself, and covei'ing two-thirds 

 of these interspaces ; at its upper interior limit there is, confluent with it, a ray or tri- 

 angular patch directed upward to the costal margin, which itself is marked more or 

 less heavily with dark brown ; besides there is a slender ray of the same color follow- 

 ing the subcostal margin halfway across the cell, and the outer margin is marked with 

 brown in various breadths ; in the upper subcostal interspace the marking runs nearly 

 halfway to the extremity of the cell ; in the interspace beyond the cell it is not more 

 than an interspace in width ; below this it increases steadily in width by as much as the 

 interspace is broadened, and the interior limit is here lunulate ; there is practically thus 

 left a dark brown wing with three large patches of tawny : a small, triangular patch 

 near the apex, a longitudinal belt along the costal margin, and an oblique, extra-mesi.al, 

 transverse belt. Hind v-inrjs with the same colors, mostly dark brown, with a small, 

 circular, tawny spot in the cell opposite tlie first submedian forking, and a straight, but 

 irregular, broad, transverse belt just beyond the middle of the wing, which broadens 

 in the median interspaces and runs from the middle of the outer half of the submedian 

 nervure to the last subcostal nervure, where it just fails of reaching the margin of the 

 wing, in the subcostal interspaces being marked only by slight points; there is also a 

 dash of tawny in the costo-subcostal interspace opposite the spot in the cell. 



Beneath, the tawny markings of the upper surface are repeated throughout and are 

 rendered more conspicuous, because the dark brown of the wings is heavily flecked 

 with tawny scales, excepting along the edges of these m.arkings, which brings them 

 into greater relief, and excepting also in the lower half of the fore wings, where in the 

 portion covered by the hind wings the dark markings are inky brown. Exp.ansc of 

 wings, 2G mm. 



This species has been regarded by some as identical with P. californicus, but in the 

 latter species the markings of the under surface of tlie hind wings are far less diver- 



