92 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



for celery , as it is reported as having nearly destroyed a celery patch 

 near Bladensburg, Md. 



Distribution and Injuries. 



The species occurs in most of the Middle, Southern and Western 

 States, from New York along the Atlantic States, the Gulf States, and the 

 Mississippi valley States to Missouri and Illinois. In the Southern 

 States its injuries to cabbages are quite severe. Its depredations are 

 seldom serious in the Middle States, except in times of drouth and con- 

 tinued hot weather, which seem almost essential to its presence. It has 

 never, to my knowledge, occurred in New York in numbers capable of 

 inflicting much harm, and indeed the moth is regarded as a rarity by 

 our collectors. Within the last five years several of the moths have 

 been captured near Albany, and it is not improbable that the species, 

 as in the case of the harlequin cabbage-bug, Murgantia histrio7iica, 

 may be gradually working its way northward and adding to its perma- 

 nently occupied territory. It does not yet appear in careful lists of 

 Lepidoptera occurring in the State of Maine. It has been recognized 

 among collections made in California.* 



Its Resemblance to an European Species. 



It approaches so nearly to an European species, Plusia ni Hiibn., 

 that its specific difference has been questioned and given occasion to con- 

 siderable discussion among some of our writers. But as Dr. Speyer, a 

 distinguished Prussian entomologist, whose studies of the allied forms 

 of Lepidoptera in Europe and America have been so critical and just 

 as to have been generally accepted, has carefully compared the two, 

 and believes them to be distinct forms, they are so received, at present, 

 by our leading entomologists. 



Number of Broods. 



In its more northern extension there are two annual broods, for, from 

 larvae taken in August, after about two weeks of pupation. Dr. Thomas 

 has had the moths emerge on the ist of September, which deposited 

 their eggs for a second brood in October. In the Southern States 

 there are probably four broods, for Mr. Grote took examples of the 

 moth in Alabama, during the last of February. Some of the European 

 Plusias are recorded as having three broods a year, although most of 

 them are believed to be single-brooded. 



*It is reported as appearing, in 1884, in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, in Minnesota, 

 and proving almost as injurious to cabbages as the white cabbage butterfly Pieris rapon 

 (0. W. Oestlund). 



