INTRODUCTION 
The species of the Liparid genus Olene Hbn. (Parorgyia Pack.) 
have proved a great stumbling block to all N. American collectors and 
compilers of lists. This is partly due to several very incomplete and 
inadequate descriptions by some of the older authors, which have re- 
sulted in constant misidentification, almost each worker on the group 
arriving at a different conclusion regarding the identity of certain 
species from that which previously existed. A lack of knowledge of 
the early stages has also added to the confusion, combined with a 
difficulty in properly associating the two sexes of a species, due to 
considerable sex-dimorphism. These latter difficulties are being slowly 
overcome, but the general apathy of collectors in N. America towards 
publishing larval notes—a state of affairs which has existed for the 
past ten years—has rendered progress in this direction much slower 
’ than necessary. Our studies of the material received from various 
collectors prove conclusively that species of which nothing definite is 
known of the earlier stages have been bred on several occasions. As 
the species of this genus are on the whole much more readily separated 
in the larval than in the adult stage, what a boon a few notes on the 
larvae would have been to us at the present moment! 
Taking Dyar’s list (Bull. 52, U. S. N. Mus.) as a basis and adding 
those species described at a later date we find we have eighteen 
names at present included in the genus, either as good species, varieties 
or synonyms. Of these tephra Hbn. (1805), plagiata Wik. (1855), 
and atomaria Wlk. (1856) were described without locality; the first 
undoubted N. Am. species are achatina and leucophaea, figured by 
Abbot and Smith, together with larvae, in Lep. Ins. Ga. I, Pl. 77 and 
78 (1797). In 1864 Packard described basiflava and in 1866 Grote 
and Robinson added four more species, clintonti, cinnamomea, obliquata 
and parallela. These were followed by atrivenosa Palm (1893), manto 
Strecker (1900) and montana Beutenmuller (1903). In 1911 Dyar 
added var. interposita, pini, var. pinicola and grisefacta, which were 
followed in the same year by styx Barnes & McDunnough. 
Numerous attempts at a correct tabulation of these various names 
have been made. 
