SYNONYMY. 13 



on the inferior page, with a slight, slender, rufous baud ; anterior tibiae with a spine ; 

 posterior'tibi;c with spines on the middle and tip ; claws distinct, emarginate beneath. 



Length to tip of superior wings nine-tenths of an inch. 



Larva sixteen-footed, spotted ; eyes spotted ; beneath immaculate, simple. Pupa 

 simple, dark chestnut or blackish ; three of the abdominal segments with dilated 

 rufous, posterior margins. 



In the above description, if any errors occur as regards color, you can rectify them 

 from more recent and perfect specimens. 



Considering that the specimens received were badly rubbed, this 

 description is a very accurate one. 



In 1846, Mr. T. Affleck, of Washington, Adams County, Mississippi, 

 sent Harris, the great New England Entomologist, specimens of the moth 

 for identification. Harris was in doubt, and wrote Doubleday, the Eng- 

 lish Lepidopterist, on the subject, as follows:*' 



Probably you have heard of the "army-worm," a caterpillar that invades the cot- 

 ton fields of the Southern States, and has this year destroyed at least one-third of the 

 crop in Louisiana and Mississippi. Several communications have been made to me 

 respecting it, and a correspondent in Mississippi having, as he states, profited by my 

 book on destructive insects, so far as to be able to trace the transformation of the army- 

 worm has recently sent to me in a letter some specimens of the moth developed from 

 this worm or caterpillar, with a description of the caterpillar. The moth was new to my 

 collection, and, though a good deal injured in transmission, is yet in such a state that 

 the genus might be made out by one familiar with the modern genera. From the habits 

 of the larva it seems to me that the insect must approach near to the genus Cosmia. 

 t * * Mr. Say described the moth from very bad specimens under the name of Noc- 

 tua xylina. I have been requested to redescribe it correctly, and wish to give to it the 

 name of the modern genus to which it may belong. 



Mr. Doubleday, in his answer (April 2, 1847), said :t " Your cotton-moth 

 is near to Ophiusa, but is a new genus. We have nothing exactly the 

 same. I have searched through Abbott's drawings and cannot find it.'' 

 He also expressed the same opinion in a meeting of the London Ento- 

 mological Society of nearly the same date.J 



Harris never redescribed the insect, but, after receiving Doubleday's 

 letter, wrote to Mr. Affleck : 



The cotton-moth will prove to be the type of a new or undetermined genus. Fabri- 

 cius describes an entirely different insect under the name of Noctua gossypii. Say gives a 

 pretty good description of the true cotton-moth, styling it Noctua xylina; which was a 

 good and proper name for the insect, as the subject was understood by Mr. Say, who 

 did not pretend to know much about the Lepidoptera. Ophima xylina better accords 

 with the present state of the science. 



Mr. B. C. L. Wailes, former State geologist of Mississippi, and corre- 

 sponding member of the Boston Society of Natural History, has pub- 

 lished an account of the cotton-worm, || in which he speaks of it by the 

 scientific name of Depressaria gossypioides. As this error of Mr. Wailes 

 has misled many, it is worthy of mention here. The principal insect 



* Entomological papers of T. W. Harris, Boston, 1869, p. 169. 



t Ibid., p. 173f 



t Trans. Eut. Soc., London, 1848, Proc. 33. 



Affleck's Southern Almanac, 1851, p. 49. 



|| Agriculture and Geology of Miss., 1854, pp. 146-148. 



