70 
the previous year in less numbers in the same gardens. Cabbage does 
not appear to be recorded as a food plant of this insect, and in fact its 
habits are little known. 
RECENT ATTACK. 
June 1-3, 1899, this species first came under the writer’s notice, 
when a few larve nearly grown and several less mature were observed 
on cabbage. June 5 an immature individual was brought to the 
writer by Mr. T. A. Keleher, of this office, who found it feeding on 
cultivated morning glory, and June 19 a larva was taken by the writer 
feeding on common pigweed (Ambrosia artemisixfolia). The indi- 
viduals found were so few in number that it was impossible to trace 
the species through its life history. The following June, however, 
larve were present in greater abundance, all on cabbage. 
DESCRIPTIVE. 
The moth of this species is a little larger and more graceful than 
that of the cabbage looper. The general color of the fore-wings is a 
beautiful bright shining brown, variegated with bronze, purple, and 
pale-fawn color. The fore-wings are not so strongly scalloped as in 
the species mentioned, but the hind-wings are similarly colored, and 
Fic. 15.—Plusia precationis: a, female moth; b, larva extended, feeding; ¢c, pupa in cocoon—all some- 
what enlarged (original). 
the veins are equally noticeable. In the common looper the white spots 
on the fore-wings are chalky-white, while in this species, although 
they are of very similar form, they are decidedly silvery, and the two 
portions are usually well separated (see fig. 15, a.) The thorax is 
also brown, and the abdomen fawn-colored, while the Jower surface is 
similarly but a little more strongly marked than that of the common 
looper. The wing expanse of specimens at hand shows a variation 
from an inch and an eighth to nearly an inch and a half. 
The penultimate stage.—In next to the last stage this larva lacks _ 
the characteristic markings of the mature form. It is very much 
more slender, and looks, in fact, more like a Geometrid than a Plusia. 
| 
; 
_ 
