PSYCHE 



NOTES ON GLUPHISIA. 



BY HARRISON G. DYAR, NEW YORK CITY 



Dr. Packard has recorded his opinion 

 concerning the species of Gluphisia in 

 the August number of Psyche. From 

 an examination of the same material, I 

 have reached somewhat different con- 

 clusions, and it may not be without 

 interest to compare the two views. 

 The principal difference is in regard to 

 G. xvrightii. Dr. Packard considers it 

 to be close to G. sevcra while I regard 

 it as the 9 °f G. albofascia. I think 

 that Dr. Packard has allowed himself 

 to be led too closely by the statements 

 of Henry Edwards, published with his 

 original description. As in the case of 

 Ichthynra bijrria, where Dr. Packard 

 has simply copied Edwards's statement 

 as to the relationship of that species, so 

 here he repeats this course. I have 

 shown that /. bijiria is not at all 

 closely related to /. brucei as stated 

 by Edwards, and, in the present case, 

 G. ivrightii, to my eye, bears no close 

 relation to G. sever a. I would cer- 

 tainly put it in the other section of the 

 genus. The habitat is in accord with 

 this arrangement, for the fauna of 

 southern California is essentially that 

 of the great arid region west of the 

 Rockies (when the species are not 

 endemic), while that of the Sierra 

 Nevada is largely that of the Pacific 



Northwest, and thus more similar to 

 the Atlantic district. 



Dr. Packard is inclined to consider 

 G. albofascia and allies as "climatic 

 varieties" of G. r/de?ida. As he does 

 not define this term, I understand him 

 to mean that they are modified to their 

 present form by the direct influence of 

 the climate of their habitat, and that if 

 removed to some other region, they 

 would not remain constant in their 

 characters. That this is so cannot be 

 assumed without proof, though the 

 experiments of Weismann and others, 

 to which Dr. Packard refers, might 

 seem to indicate it. 



I have not been able to perform any 

 experiments in regard to these cases in 

 Gluphisia ; but I have done so in 

 Ichthyura. There is a pale form of 

 /. vau in the Rocky Mountain region, 

 which bears much the same relation to 

 /. vau that G. ridenda does to G. 

 trilineata. Mr. C. A. Wiley had the 

 kindness to send me eggs of this form 

 from Miles City, Montana, and they 

 were raised in the typically eastern 

 climate of Boston ; but produced an 

 imago of the pale form.* I am inclined, 



*The larvae had but four stages while [. vau from 

 Boston have five, if my observations are correct. In 

 the last case, I did not observe the stages in sequence, 

 so that there is some chance of error. (See Can. ent., 

 June and July 1S92.) 



