Noctuiase 



Fig. 85. Apatela populi, 

 (After Riley.) 



resembles in the markings of the fore wings, by its smaller 



size and the white hind wings. It ranges from Canada to 



Virginia and westward to the Rocky Mountains. The caterpillar 



lives upon alder, willow, and birch. 



(3) Apatela populi Riley, Plate XVIII, Fig. 14, $ (The 



Cottonwood Dagger-moth.) 



The moth, of which we reproduce the figures of the larva and 



imago given by Professor Riley, who first described the species, 



ranges from Canada to the 

 western parts of the Carolinas, 

 thence across the continent to 

 the Pacific coast, avoiding the 

 warmer regions of the Gulf 

 States and southern California. 

 The imago is discriminated from 

 Apatela lepusculina Guenee by 

 the broader wings, especially of 

 the female, by the paler ground- 

 of the primaries, and by the absence of the orbicular 

 which is very rarely as conspicuous as it appears in 



the figure given by Riley, and still further by the very short 



basal dash on the 



fore wings, which 



in A. lepusculina is 



long, reaching out- 

 wardly as a sharply 



defined black line 



one-third of the 



length of the cell. 



The larva is also quite 



different in impor- 

 tant particulars from 



that of the species, 



which has been 



named, but with 



which this species is 



often confounded in 



collections. The caterpillar feeds upon the foliage of different 



species of the genus Populus, and is particularly common in the 



color 

 spot, 



Fig. 86. Apatela populi, larva. 

 (After Riley.) 



154 



