LEPIDOPTERA OF NEW YORK AND NEIGHBORING STATES 69 



Key to species 



Yellow-brown 1. hyperboreus. 



Brownish gray 2. gracilis. 



1. H. hyperboreus Moschler. Yellow -brown; male with an irregular, silver 

 V-ma,rk extending across the wing or nearly so, and sometimes with silvery 

 terminal spots. Female similar to male or with an obscure blackish V only. 

 50 mm. 



The species is hardly distinct from H. ganna of the Alpine regions of the 

 Old World, and the forms in this country are not well understood. The form with 

 silvery terminal spots flies by day, and is typical hyperboreus (Labrador, Alberta) ; 

 the one without is macglashani Henry Edwards (H 41:15) and is a dusk-flier 

 ( Ontario, California ) . 



Hymers, Ontario; Arctic America, and westward. 



2. H. gracilis Grote. Fore wing brownish gray, mottled, the most distinct 

 marking being an irregular band from base to middle of inner margin, and one 

 from apex nearly to the same point, both with a gray central shade, and often 

 with a blackish shade where they meet. over 30 mm.; 5 over 40 mm. 



The larva is likely to bore in ferns. 



Maine to Massachusetts; Colorado. 



Var. mustelinus Packard, is a more northern form of the species dominant in 

 Nova Scotia and Quebec, and also ranging to Colorado. It is smaller (^ under 30, 

 $ under 40 mm.) more decidedly brown, and more contrastingly marked than the 

 type, the female being as contrastive as the male of the typical form. Intergrades 

 are not rare. 



