14 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



enemy to cotton culture in India has been named by Mr. Saunders De- 

 pressaria gossypiella.* This insect is a Tineid moth, the larva of which 

 bores into the forming cotton seed. Mr. Wailes had evidently either 

 seen the name attached to an insufficient description or had ignored the 

 description entirely, presupposing its identity with our cotton-worm 

 moth from its similar powers of destruction. 



In 1864 Mr. A. R. Grote, having carefully compared the descriptions of 

 Guene"e's Anomis Mpunctina t and Say's Noctua aeylina, came to the con- 

 clusion that they were synonymous. | Say's specific name having the 

 priority, bipunctina fell to the ground, while the more modern genus 

 Anomis of Huebner took the place of the Fabrician genus Noctua, and 

 the cotton-moth was for some ten years or more known as Anomis xylina 

 Say. 



In 1874 Mr. Grote discovered that Hiibner had in 1822 described and 

 figured the cotton-moth under the name of Aletia argillacea; and, as 

 Mr. Grote had in the mean time made himself familiar with the type of 

 the genus Anomis (A. erosa Hiibn.) and found it to differ " structurally 

 and generically from the cotton-worm moth," he decided that Hiibner's 

 combined name should hold in the future, and accordingly introduced it 

 into his "List of the Noctuida? of North America," 1874. Mr. Grote also 

 announced this conclusion in a paper read before the Hartford meeting 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. || We 

 shall in this report follow the highest American authority on the group ; 

 but to show the doubt that may still exist as to the identity of Anomis 

 xylina and Aletia argillacea, and as a matter of curiosity, we quote the 

 original description of the cotton-moth 5 it will also serve as a specimen 

 of Huebnerian workmanship. 



200. 



ALETIA ARGILLACEA. 



Aus Bahia. Vom Herrn Sommer abgelassen. Eine Noctua genuma and Hcttophila 

 lineata. Sie ist der A. Vitellina^ sehr ahnlich, hat aber in nichts eine Glcichheit mit 

 ihr und auf den Schwingen einen weissen Punct. Ihre Abildung, 399, 400 stellt ein 

 mdnnliches muster vor.** 



Figures 399 and 400 are very highly-colored representations of what 

 may, by a stretch of the imagination, be called the cotton- worm moth. 

 The figure of A. vitellina represents a moth with reddish-brown prima- 

 ries, with a reniform spot on each, and uncolored secondaries. 



Trans. But. Soc., London, 1843, vi, p. 284. 



tNoctuelites, vol. II, p. 401 (1852). 



tProc. Ent. Soc. Phil. Ill (1864), p. 541. 



$ Zntriige znr Sammlung Exotischer Schmettlinge 2 e Hund. 200 pi., 399. 



|| Proc. A. A. A. S. vol. 23, part II, p. 13 (1874.) 



f HUbn. Noc., 379, Vitellina. 



* Tim may be very freely translated : ' ' From Bahia. Left by Mr. Sommer. A true 

 noctuid, and a specimen of Heliophila lineata. It is very like A. Vitellina, except that 

 it has a white dot on the wings. Figs. 399 and 400 represent the male." 



