84 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



NOTES ON NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF NEPTICULA, 

 WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES 



(Lepidoptera) 

 By Annette F. Braun 



Owing to the difficulty in rearing many of the species of 

 this genus, especially those that are one-brooded and pass the 

 winter as full-fed larvae within the cocoons, the practice of 

 naming species from the mine and larva has been all too preva- 

 lent. Clemens and Chambers have been the chief offenders 

 in this regard, and thirteen such names are credited to them 

 on our lists. A few of these species were afterwards bred 

 and their descriptions published. It is reasonable to suppose 

 that some of them when bred will be found identical with 

 species named from flown specimens with no knowledge of 

 the life history. Until this breeding is done, our knowledge 

 of this genus must remain in its present confused and un- 

 satisfactory state. To avoid further confusion in a genus 

 where the species bear such close resemblance to one another, 

 nothing more should be described unless the complete life 

 history is known. 



The writer of the present paper has been making an efifort 

 to breed these incompletely known species, and to determine 

 whether they have been described in other stages. In the 

 progress of the work a number of species not hitherto recorded 

 have been noticed and the imagoes successfully reared. It has 

 been thought advisable to publish the descriptions of these new 

 species, since their complete life history is known. Many 

 other mines, not noted by other authors, have been observed, 

 both in the vicinity of Cincinnati and elsewhere, leading one 

 to conclude that the genus is represented by a vastly greater 

 number of species than our check lists show. 



Of the fifteen species to which reference is made in the 

 following paper, ten are entirely new, five were previously 

 described only in the larval state. Two of these last five are 

 identical with species bred and described under other names. 



