94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.xxi. 



Hahitat. — Canada to Texas, west to the Mississippi Valley; New Jer- 

 sey in June; Albany, New York, in May and June; Evans Center, 

 New York, July ; Long Island, New York, August: central Missouri 

 in July; Texas in May, June, and July. 



This pretty little species is quite easily recognizable and is unlike 

 anything else in the genus. The primaries have a peculiarly smooth, 

 almost n»etallic, vestiture, on which the greenish mottlings are well 

 defined. It varies quite considerably in the amount of contrast between 

 the ground color and the markings, and it easily fades in the cabinet, 

 so that fresh specimens are often quite different at first sight from those 

 that Lave been kept in the collection. The front is flat, or bulges but 

 little; the palpi are well developed and extend easily to the middle of 

 the front. The legs of the male are normally developed, all the parts 

 proportionate, and none of them particularly heavy. The epiphysis of 

 the tibia is attached nearer to the base than to the middle, but extends 

 almost to the tip. The tarsi are perhaps longer in proportion to the 

 rest of the leg than is usual. The harpes are rather short, even, 

 rounded at tip. The clasper is very stout and strong, forming a sin- 

 gle beak-like stru<;ture, the edges of which are irregular and toothed. 

 They are therefore (piite distinctive and unlike anything else found in 

 the genus. Altogether, this is a very well marked form in all its 

 features. 



LARVA. 



Stage ]"i. — Head bilobed, rounded, a pulverulent brown patch on the 

 upper part of the face of each lobe, reaching to the median suture. 

 Clypeus high as usual, but the side pieces indistinct and fused with the 

 lobes, so that only the triangular center is distinct; width, 2.8 mm. 

 Body higher than wide, thorax thicker than the head, joint 12 scarcely 

 enlarged. Tubercule II on joints 5 and 12 produced, prominent, all 

 the others greatly reduced, small, and obscure, except the thoracic ones, 

 which are moderate. Body green, a narrow subdorsal band bent up 

 to tubercule II on joints 5 and 12, elsew^here reaching somewhat below 

 it. A faint, straight, pale dorsal, and substigmatal lines. Prominent 

 tubercles brownish. Warts with a central seta and crown of short 

 ones, dark from warts I to III, pale IV to VI, with some fine, short, pale, 

 secondary hairs subventrally. Length, 24 mm. 



Food plant. — Elm. 



ACRONYCTA FRAGILIS Guenee. 

 (Plates XII, fig. 3, female adult; XXI, fig. 7, male genitalia.) 



Microeoelia fragilis Guen^e, Spec. Gen., Noct., 1852, I, p. 34. — Walkeh, Cat. 



Brit. Mus., Het., 1856, IX, p. 31.— Grote, Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila., 1861, III, 



p. 80.— Morrison, Psyche, 1875, I, p. 42. 

 BryophiJa spectans Walker, Can. Nat. and Geol., 1861, VI, p. 38 — Grote, Can. 



Eat., 1877, IX, p. 27, pr. syn. 



Ground color whitish, almost completely overlaid by smoky brown 

 scales. The head is black spotted; the collar is black marked on the 



