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Cerathosia tricolor, Smith. 

 By John B. Smith. 



Mr. Grote's remarks on this genus and species are really a matter of 

 surprise to me, and I feel almost as though I owed an apology to all 

 Lepidopterists for treating them seriously. However Mr. Grote does cor- 

 rect me in one particular, and one only, and the acknowledgment of my 

 error there may serve as an e.xcuse to mention the other points. Mr. Grote 

 is correct in stating that vein 5 of secomlaries is present. It is however 

 so weak that in the specimens I looked on it as a fold, and in the recent 

 slides it was totally invisible. Later it became visible on the hardening of 

 the balsam, but very faintly, and variable in the specimens and in one 

 scarcely visible. This does not control or modify the family reference in 

 any way, however, since in the ArctiicLe the location is not constant, 

 while in the Lithosiidce with which this genus has great affinities — so great 

 indeed that the presence of ocelli alone excludes it — the venation is ab- 

 solutely paralleled, and vein 5 is present or absent in the same genus. 

 This Mr. Grote should have known, and he should have known also 

 that the location of vein 5 in the Noctuidis is by no means a constant 

 factor either as to strengtli or location. 



Mr. Grote however utterly fails to refer to the important family 

 character found in the costal vein, which in no Noctuid arises from the 

 subcostal, but always from the base, though sometimes forming a con- 

 nectitjn with the subco^tal further on. In this genus the origin of the 

 Costal is so plainly from the subcostal, remote from base, that this feature 

 aldne would locate the insect as to family were it the sole character. The 

 so-called corrections to my description of the venation of primaries are 

 purely verbal and imaginary. Mr. Grote knows, if he has studied venation 

 in any group other than the so often cited genera allied to Spragueia, 

 that the accessory cell, even in the same species, often varies m size and 

 form, and that in the same insect it may be present on one side and ab- 

 sent on the other. In Callimorpha I have drawn attention to this fact in 

 my paper on the species. The differences pointed out by Mr. Grote are 

 due wholly to individual variation, and though great in sound, are great 

 in no other way. In reference to vein 7 and its derivatives, renewed 

 exammation bears out my description fully. I am ready to believe how- 

 ever that Mr. Grote's description is also correct. As to vein 10 again, 

 he says that it arises from the middle of the upper margin while I say 

 upper angle. Another verbal correction. The specimen from which I 

 described had a short but rather wide accessory cell somewhat diamond 

 shaped, the widest part considerably toward outer margin. The lower 



