412 



PSrCHE. 



[August 1S96. 



name, or rather free for Harris' pruni, 

 a name based on a larva which is said 

 to be that of mj' clarescens. 



And against this latter course there 

 seems no possible objection, for Guenee 

 was uncertain that my species ■was his. 

 and especially drew my attention to cer- 

 tain features which made the identifica- 

 tion uncertain. But whatever Guenee's 

 t%-pe of clarescens was, it was not identi- 

 cal with hamamelis. So good an ento- 

 mologist as Guenee could not have 

 redescribed his species from a specimen 

 absolutely the same with his tj'pe. 

 And yet this is what Prof. Smith would 

 have us believe. This is the result of 

 referring varieties as synonyms; for I 

 admit the possibilitv of clarescens being 

 based on a pale, perhaps large hama- 

 melis. The same thing is repeated in 

 Heliophila (Leucania). Here we are 

 asked to believe that Guenee's e.v//«c/a, 

 linita, and scirpicola are, without anv 

 question, one species only. Now Apa- 

 tela and Heliophila have this in com- 

 mon, that certain species are separable 

 on very indistinct characters, but, espe* 

 eialh^ in Heliophila, the characters 

 are constant and readily seized upon by 

 an expert. Neither in Heliophila nor 

 rn Apatela have I ever described a 

 species under two names, whereas 

 this has happened to me in genera 

 where the species are usually more 

 broadly distinguished and are perhaps 

 more prone to vary. But, in my case, 

 the mistake has usually happened owing 

 to my having been obliged to return 

 •") type; consequentlv I could not 

 compare the second specimen, which. 



varying a little from my first type, 

 seemed to be a distinct species from the 

 picture in my memorv. To suppose 

 that Guenee, with all the specimens 

 before him, could redescribe species of 

 Heliophila and Apatela seems difficult. 

 Guenee is not Walker. 



Clarescens Grt. is therefore pruni 

 Han-is ; but about clarescens Gn. there 

 hangs a doubt, which the future mono- 

 grapher may solve. My memory of 

 Guenee's type is not strong enough to 

 risk any further opinion, while my 

 deference to Guenee, and m_v relative 

 unacquaintance with the species in 

 1S67, led me to form no opinion of 

 my own upon the specimen. The im- 

 pression I took with me was that 

 Guenee was disposed to make the iden- 

 tification on the whole, so that I adopted 

 the name. 



Now as to brumosa. I did not have 

 this with me in 1S67. After I had 

 described verrillii. Mr. Morrison iden- 

 tified this species as brumosa. 1 

 thought this identification probable and 

 adopted it. The species apparently 

 belongs to the subgenus Pharetra, and 

 I may here say that I have wronglv 

 used the subgenus Apatela. the type of 

 which is of course aceris for this group, 

 in my papers in Papilio and the Cana- 

 dian entomologist upon our Dagger 

 Moths. The type of Pharetra Hiibn. 

 Verz., is, therefore, auricoma. Now, 

 Butler and Smith identify brumosa with 

 persuasa. The latter is a Texan species, 

 and it seems to me doubtful that Guenee 

 .should have had this species before him, 

 since his material came mostly from the 



