10 THE LEPI'DOPTERIST 



The larvae fed up readily on willow catkins and 

 resembled so closely those of briseis (which we knew 

 well from breeding in previous years) that we failed 

 to take any detailed notes on the various stages; we 

 were successful in bringing twenty-five through to the 

 imago stage but found to our great surprise that the 

 species was not briseis at all ; ten specimens were typ- 

 ical hcrmia and the remaining fifteen were a pale 

 form much resembling certain specimens of diantha 

 Beut. except for their large size and rather brighter 

 pink secondaries ; the primaries are of an even dark 

 blue-gray shade without any of the heavy black shad- 

 ing found in hermin; as it seems advisable to name 

 this form in order to distinguish it from very similar 

 forms of verecunda and briseis we propose for it the 

 name vesta. 



The briseis group, which, based on the similarity 

 of the larvae, includes verecunda, luciana, hermin and 

 calif ornica and probably a few others whose life his- 

 tory is unknown, is one of the most puzzling in the 

 genus ; typical Eastern briseis is readily separated but 

 in the Rocky Mt. region where it tends to pale forms 

 it can prove very puzzling ; the race minerva Cass, 

 occurs in both pale and dark forms, the latter ap- 

 proaching typical briseis; one of the best means of 

 separation from allied forms is found in the brownish 

 area beyond the t. p. line ; in briseis and its races this 

 is composed of peculiar scales overlapping in such a 

 way as to give the appearance of distinct vertical rib- 

 bing; this ribbing is practically lacking in verecunda 

 and hermia. 



Verecunda in its typical form bears considerable 

 resemblance to luciana but is smaller and with less 

 of the salmon shades to secondaries ; its dark unicol- 

 orous from diantha is, as already noted, strikingly 

 similar to vesta but lacks the blue-gray shade of pri- 

 maries, being more of a dull olive or smoky brown 

 with duller colored secondaries. 



Hermia in some specimens is very close to calif or- 

 nica and it was this resemblance doubtless which led 

 Strecker to figure (Lep. Het.. PI. XI, fig. 13) a colora- 



