142 TWENTY-SIXTH REPORT ON THE STATE MUSEUM. 



V. NOTES ON SOME NEW YORK BOMBYCIM. 



In this and the folio wing paper several notes are given which were 

 made a number of years ago, a few of which are accompanied with 

 their dates. It is with hesitancy that some of these notes, descriptive of 

 larvae, are presented. They are not offered as descriptions, being too 

 incomplete to serve as such, but simply as contributions toward a 

 knowledge of the natural history of our Lepidoptera, of which we 

 possess, as yet, so little information, that the most simple fact observed 

 in relation to them can hardly fail of being of sufficient value to entitle 

 it to record and publication. Even if anticipated, its independent 

 observation gives it confirmatory value, with perhaps the additional 

 value of its occurrence under different conditions of locality, season, 

 food-plant, etc. 



Callimorpha Lecontii Boisd. 



Larva feeding on spearmint (Mentha mridis). Length at maturity 

 one inch ; tuberculated, bearing fascicles of stiff hairs ; dark brown, 

 with yellow spots. It made a cocoon just beneath the surface of the 

 ground July 1st, from which the moth emerged July 24th. 



A number of the moths were captured July 28th, beside a small 

 stream, in a ravine where spearmint was growing abundantly. 



An interesting militaris variety of this moth, a female, taken 

 August 8th, lacks entirely the brown dorsal stripe on the abdomen. 

 The thoracic mesial stripe is inconspicuous, and the brown costal and 

 internal margins and the two cross lines of the primaries is limited 

 to lines not exceeding one-twentieth of an inch in width ; the spot 

 resting on the median nervules is large. 



In two other examples, a male and female, in lieu of the abdominal 

 dorsal stripe is a series of brown spots resting on the anterior margin 

 of the segment and extending three-fourths of its length, narrowing 

 posteriorly ; the spots narrower and less conspicuous in the $ . On 

 the secondaries, near their outer margin, are four brown spots in the 

 $ (three in the <$ ) of which the largest is transversely elongated, 

 rests on the first median nervule (vein 2) and extends nearly to the 

 median fold, in length equaling the space between the fold and vein 



