Noctuidae 



Fig. 85. — Apatela populi, ? 

 (After Riley.) 



resembles in the markings of the fore wings, by its smaller 

 size and the white hind wings. It ranges from Canada to 

 Virginia and westward to the Rocky Mountains. The caterpillar 

 lives upon alder, willow, and birch. 



(3) Apatela populi Riley, Plate XVIll, Fig. 14, 6 (The 

 Cottonwood Dagger-moth.) 



The moth, of which we reproduce the figures of the larva and 

 imago given by Professor Riley, who first described the species, 



ranges from Canada to the 

 western parts of the Carolinas, 

 thence across the continent to 

 the Pacific coast, avoiding the 

 warmer regions of the Gulf 

 States and southern California. 

 The imago is discriminated from 

 Apatela lepusculina Guenee by 

 the broader wings, especially of 

 the female, by the paler ground- 

 color of the primaries, and by the absence of the orbicular 

 spot, which is very rarely as conspicuous as it appears in 

 the figure given by Riley, and still further by the very short 

 basal dash on the 

 fore wings, which 

 m A. lepusculina is 

 long, reaching out- 

 wardly as a sharply 

 defined black line 

 one-third of the 

 length of the cell. 

 The larva is also quite 

 different in impor- 

 tant particulars from 

 that of the species, 

 which has been 

 named, but with 

 which this species is 

 often confounded in 

 collections. The caterpillar feeds upon the foliage of different 

 species of the genus Populus, and is particularly common in the 



Fig. 86. — Apatela populi, larva. 

 (After Riley.) 



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