22 THE FLORIDA ENTOMOLOGIST 
intention, but unfortunately not everyone would form the name 
in the same way. 
If a subsequent paper published by Ashmead in his “Orange 
Insects’, only a year after the publication of this original de- 
scription of the mite, had not been so commonly overlooked, 
this confusion would have been largely avoided. In his “Orange 
Insects,” published in 1880, there occurs on page 40 the follow- 
ing sentence: “I immediately began to study it (the rust mite), 
and soon after wrote him (Rev. T. W. Moore) that I had dis- 
covered what it was and forwarded a description of it for pub- 
lication, crediting him with the discovery, under the name of 
Typhlodromus oleivorus, i. e., oil eating from supposing it to 
feed on the essential oil of the orange.” 
Thus the earliest amended spelling of the specific name, and 
in this instance the more properly formed, is oleivorus. The 
proper scientific name for the orange rust mite, therefore, is 
Phyllocoptes oleivorus (Ashmead). 
.H. E. EWING 
U. S. Bureau of Entomology. 
A GEOMETRID LARVA ON GRAPEFRUIT 
The writer has recently received a number of larvae of the 
Geometrid moth Microgonia vesulia Cramer which were col- 
lected on grapefruit trees. The larva is not apt to be confounded 
with anything else, being a large gray looper, fully four inches 
long when mature. The majority of the larvae were parasitized 
by a Tachinid fly, and only the very young larvae lived to pro- 
duce moths. These parasites will probably prevent the insect 
from ever becoming of any importance as a pest. 
I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Benjamin for the determination. 
The moth is figured by Holland (Moth Book, pl. XLV, f. 11) 
under the name Oxydia vesulia. Grossbeck (Insects of Fla., 
IV, p. 102) gives the food plant of the larvae as oak. According 
to these authorities it is found over south Florida, and extends 
to Texas and through Mexico and the Antilles to Brazil. A 
series of the bred specimens is preserved in the author’s col- 
lection. 
D. MARSTON BATES. 
