NO. 1140. NORTH AMERICAN NfJCTVIDAE— SMITH AND DYAli. IGl 



Cocoon. — Spun tightly among leaves; composed of silk. 



Pupa. — Brown black, cases heavily wrinkled, abdominal segments 

 roughened with irregular confluent granules, not points, the rounded 

 l)OSterior segmental bands smooth. Anal segments rapidly tapering. 

 Cremaster wide, flattened, concave below and with a dense brush of 

 little straight spines over the end. 



Food plants. — Willow, plum, hazel, currant, blackberry. 



ACRONYCTA DISTANS Grote. 



(Plates XIII, figs. 6, 7, male ami female adults; XVIII, fig. 20, leg; XXII, figs. 12, 1'6, 



male genitalia.) 



Apatela distans (jROTE, Can. Ent., 1879, XI, p. .\i8. 



A detailed description of this species would be in all essential i)oints 

 a reiuoduction of what was written under the head of ijiqn-ea.sa, the 

 two look so much alike. iJisfans, as compared with inqrressa, is, on the 

 whole, a trifle smaller. The wings, especially in the male, are narrower 

 and the apices of the i)rimaries are distinctly more pointed. The latter 

 is i)articularly true of the female, but is also traceable in the male. 

 The markings, on the whole, are less distinct, more suffused by black 

 scales, and there is a dusky or blackish longitudinal shading, which 

 extends from the base below the middle of the wing to the outer margin 

 without a distinct break. This is perhaps the most obvious character 

 of the species; but it is a somewhat variable one, and occasionally a 

 break occurs just inside of the transverse posterior line, and then the 

 resemblance to iiiqjre.ssa becomes very close. On the whole the species 

 has the secondaries a little paler than in the previous case, but other- 

 wise the two resemble each other perfectly. I doubt whether I would 

 have considered this a distinct species had not Dr. Dyar called my 

 attention to the fact that there seemed to be a larval difl'erence. When 

 the forms are separated in series a ditterence may be marked; but a 

 single specimen may be troublesome to place in some cases. The 

 species is perhaps better defined in the female than in the male. In 

 the sexual characters there is very little difference; in both cases the 

 harpes are rather evenly rounded at the tip and the clasper is very well 

 developed and large. The inferior process is long, somewhat excavated 

 on the inner side, with a rounded tip; the superior i)rocess is stout, 

 long, nearly equal to the tip, where it ends in an abrupt, short point. 

 In imprenHa this upper process is nearly straight and somewhat irregu- 

 lar; in distant it is more even and distinctly curved, though not 

 strongly so. The differences, however, are comparative, and I would 

 not be inclined to give them much weight. There is more difference in 

 the anterior legs of the male. These in distaus are distinctly longer 

 than in impressa^ not only comparatively but absolutely, though distans 

 is the smaller species. The tibia in impresm is distinctly stouter and 

 the epiphysis is inserted nearer to the base, besides being also broader. 

 I have not been able to discover any other characters. 1 have not seen 

 Proc. N. M. vol. xxi 11 



