314 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



" I am not surprised that you are so much struck with the 

 difference between the male and female, but I can fully answer 

 you on that point. The specimens with the broad yellow-ochreish 

 shading on the inner margin of the upper wing are males ; the 

 females never have it, at least not in Siberia. I have bred it 

 myself in Nicolajefsk on the Amoor, and was also at first surprised 

 to get two such different imagos from the same larvae. In 1884 I 

 found about 200 of the larvae around Nicolajefsk, but unfortu- 

 nately all but ten were ichneumoned. The larvae feed in 

 preference on Epilobiwm and Corydalis gigantea, and remain by 

 day hidden in the earth. I have two of these larvae preserved, of 

 which I hope to send you one. It is an insect which occurs 

 generally here and there throughout Amoorland, and I was fairly 

 successful in my captures of it." 



A point of great interest in this communication is the 

 establishment of a great difference between the male and female. 

 The figures in Newman and Herrich-Schiitfer are all of the 

 former ; but the latter, the female, seems to have been unknown 

 to any of them. The following is a description of both sexes from 

 the specimens I possess: — 



Male. — Fore wings warm bister-brown, with faintly darker 

 transverse lines, the ground colour shading off on the inner 

 margin to a broad band of light ochre ; stigmata dirty white. 

 Hind wings and body a very pale shade of the fore wings. 



Female. — Fore wings quite uniform dark ashy grey, with 

 faintly darker transverse lines, similar to the male ; stigmata 

 dirty white. Hind wings and body very light shade of the 

 upper wings. 



It will thus be readily seen that the two sexes might easily be 

 mistaken for quite different species ! 



I may further add to the general description that in both 

 sexes the wings are remarkably narrow, and the stigmata 

 exceptionally wide apart ; in fact Guenee is quite correct in his 

 remark that the insect has a look quite sui generis. 



Mr. G. Norman's Canadian specimens, which are all males, 

 quite agree with mine of that sex from Amurland in size 

 and colouring. 



Beverley, E. Yorks, November, 1887. 



