, 1 



NOV 1 



PSYCHE. 



ORC N OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB 



EDITED BY GEORGE DIMMOCK AND B. PICKMAN MANN. 

 f 



Val. II.] Cambridge, Mass., Nov.-Dec, 1877. [Nos. 43-44. 



Notes upon the American Species of Lithocoiletis. 



Litliocolletis (Zeller) comprises a multitude of species of 

 small, gaily colored moths, all of which, in the larval state, are 

 " leaf-miners " • — that is, they burrow between the upper and 

 lower cuticles of leaves, feeding upon the parenchyma. 



We have in this country two distinct larval forms in this 

 genus ; so distinct that if the moths differed as do the larvte, 

 we would be compelled to regard them as differing generically. 

 No differences have been detected, however, between the ma- 

 ture insects of the two groups, and one would not, on meeting 

 with a species of which the larva was unknown, be able to 

 determine to which larval group it belonged, unless indeed the 

 ground color of the moth was white, when it might safely be 

 predicted that the larva would be found to belong to the cylin- 

 drical group. The larvgB of this group present nothing in their 

 form or outline whereby they may at first glance be distin- 

 guished from any other small cylindrical larvae having only 

 fourteen feet. Indeed they resemble much more nearly a 

 small larva of the genus Gracilaria than they do the depressed 

 or flattened larvae of the other group of Lithocoiletis. 



The late Dr. B. Clemens,^ the pioneer in the study of Amer- 

 ican Tineina, who first called attention to the fact that the 

 larvae of this genus differ as above stated, thus describes the 

 larva of what he calls the second, but which had perhaps bet- 

 ter be known as the flattened or depressed group. '' The head 

 is thin and flattened, with the mandibles forming an appendage 

 in front ; the body is flattened, deeply incised, and mammilated 

 on the sides." To this brief description I will add that, in 

 nearly all the species, the dorsal surface of each segment is 



