1898.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 15 



Carphoxera ptelearia Riley.— Herbarium Pest. 

 By Vernon L. Kellogg, Stanford University, Calif. 



Last November (1896) Prof. W. R. Dudley, of this university 

 (Stanford), discovered that several papers of herbarium speci- 

 mens in his collection were infested by small Geometrid larvae 

 and turned over to me a number of these papers. The plant 

 specimens were in open cases and unpoisoned. This month (May) 

 imagines have appeared from the papers revealing the pest to be 

 Carphoxera ptelearia described by Riley (" Insect Life," 1891, 

 vol. iv, p. 108) as the representative of a new genus of Geometrid 

 moths, and referred to occasionally since. 



From the papers given me by Prof. Dudley I have been able 

 to get eggs, larvae and imagines. All of the stages were described 

 by Dr. Riley and need no further special mention. The duration 

 of the larval period was not determined by Riley, but in his ac- 

 count it is stated that " larval life extends in some cases certainly 

 over a period of three months." The larvae, under my notice, 

 were practically full sized when found, Nov. 6, 1896, but they did 

 not pupate until April and May, 1897. Nor was this long period 

 one of inaction. They moved about over the specimens in the 

 papers feeding all through the Winter, though the feeding was 

 far from voracious. How many weeks or months had elapsed 

 between hatching and time of discovery of the larvae cannot 

 even be guessed at, but evidently the insect has a larval life of at 

 least eight or nine months. 



The results of the insect's presence in Prof. Dudley's herbarium 

 are distinctly in evidence, and the pest will have to be reckoned 

 with in western herbaria. Dr. Riley found the insects in the 

 herbaria of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, but 

 confined to plant specimens from Southern California and Arizona, 

 except in one instance. The habit of Carphoxera of feeding on 

 dry and dead vegetation is, as pointed out by Riley, almost unique 

 among the Geometridae, but one other instance of it, shown by 

 a European species, being recorded. Dr. Riley suggests the 

 probability that Carphoxera ' normally feeds on the dead or dry 

 plants of Mexico and adjacent arid regions, and that it has simply 

 adapted itself to the somewhat similar conditions prevailing in 

 herbaria." 



The infested papers in Prof. Dudley's herbarium represent 



