VAPORER MOTH VARIETIES. 213 



in the State of New- York. Indeed the specimens which I meet 

 with in Washington county, fifty miles north of Albany, are so 

 uniform in their characters, and so unlike the insect figured and 

 described by Abbott and Smith that I should deem them a dis- 

 tinct species, were it not that the caterpillars, which are so pe- 

 culiarly colored and clothed, appear to be identical with those 

 of Georgia, and specimens of the moths from the vicinity of the 

 city of New-York are intermediate in their marks, between the 

 more northern and the Georgia insects, thus indicating that there 

 is a gradual transition from the one to the other. 



The winged moths as they occur in the Southern States, appear from the 

 representations given, to be of a pale graj r or ash' color, the fore wings with a 

 white crescent near the inner hind angle, and crossed by two conspicuous curv- 

 ed black bands, the hind one of which and the black spots upon these wings 

 are nearly as in the following variety. 



The intermediate variety (0 Icucost'gma var. intermedia) which" occurs in 

 the southern part of New-York measures about 1.40 across the extended wings. 

 The fore-wings are ash-gray, their basal third smoky brown, paler on the 

 inner side and crossed by a faint wavy pale band, which is confluent outwardly 

 with an ash-gray cloud which extends from this band to the base. A blackish 

 crinkled band commences on the inner margin behind the middle, runnin"- in- 

 ward and then curving backward, till it approaches the outer edge, when it 

 abruptly turns forward almost at a right angle and extends straight in an ob- 

 lique direction more than the tenth of an inch to the outer edge. In the mid- 

 dle of the pale gray space forward of this band is a slender black crescent hav- 

 ing some resemblance to the letter L, with a dot between it and the outer mar- 

 gin, a slender black line sometimes reaching with a curve from the crescent to 

 the dot. The wing back of the band is pale smoky brown, except towards the 

 outer margin, where it is pale gray, with a rhombic black spot on the margin 

 immediately behind the band, this spot being cut across longitudinally by a 

 slender gray line. Inside of this spot and much nearer the hind edge are two 

 smaller blackish spots or streaks. Near the inner hind angle is a large white 

 comma-like dot having its tail towards the inner edge. From this dot a pale 

 streak often extends across the wing, parallel with the hind mar°in. The 

 fringe is smoky, crossed by pale lines at the tips of the veins. 



In the northern variety ( O. leucustigma var. borealis) which is met with 

 in the more northern sections of the State, the wings when spread measure 

 from 1.20 to 1.30. Both pairs are alike in color, being dull smoky or dingy 

 brown. The upper ones have a large ash-gray patch on the middle of the outer 

 margin, which commonly extends to the tip, and is crossed by an oblique 

 blackish streak, which is all that can be perceived of the band noticed in the 

 preceding variety. Immediately back of this is a blackish spot, commonly of 

 a rhombic form and sometimes crossed by a pale line. The base of these wings 

 is somewhat clouded with ash-gray ; and near the inner hind angle is a roundish 

 white spot which is sometimes faint and almost effaced. Sometimes a row of 

 small dark brown crescent-shaped spots is perceptible along the apical edge at 



