SENECIO JACOB AE A & CALLTMORPHA JACOBAEA POOLE. 281 



knowledge proved to be as new to the Canadian agricultural 

 authorities as it was to myself, then it would be worthy of 

 further investigation. 



To this end I spoke to the Director of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens at Kew, Sir. E. D. Prain, and to officials in rooms 

 four and eight of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, 

 Whitehall Place, and also to Mr. R. South, F. E. S. of the 

 Natural History Museum, South Kensington. In the mean- 

 time I had made acquaintance with Mr. I. W. Walton, the 

 botanist, at Folkestone, who confirmed from local observation 

 the statement made by Mr. Lee. Any lingering doubt I may 

 have had was removed on visiting the Natural History 

 Museum and reading the slip attached to the specimens of 

 Callimorpha Jacobaea, the Cinnabar moth of the order 

 Heterocera. 



Seeing that none of the works on weeds already quoted 

 made reference to the Cinnabar moth, attention was turned to 

 Barret's Lepidoptera of the British Isles, a standard work, 

 and on page 246 the moth is spoken of as commoji in England 

 and as having been taken as far North as Perth. It was also 

 mentioned that while the moth is generally met with on 

 Ragwort, it has occasionally been found feeding on the 

 Coltsfoot. 



At this stage of my inquiry several questions presented 

 themselves: among them first, was the Cinnabar moth known 

 in any part of North America? 



Inquiry of the Bureau of Entomology, Department of 

 Agriculture, Washington, U. S. A., brought a courteous reply 

 from Dr. F. H. Chittenden to the effect that he has never 

 found Callimorpha Jacobaea to occur in the United States at 

 all; and he further wrote that on referring the matter to Dr. 

 H. D. Dyar a specialist on Lepidoptera in that group, he 

 stated that he has never known of its being taken in the United 

 States. 



