144 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



meuta t^-punctella, as figured by him, being 

 precisely that found in some specimens of 

 Prodoxus. Nevertheless we have not 

 thought best to adopt Mr. Chambers' spe- 

 cific name on our own confidence, because 

 we prefer to leave it to those who substan- 

 tiate our views beyond peradventure and 

 who believe in the extremest law of prior- 

 ity to relegate decipiens as a synonym of 

 ^-punctelia, and further because we are of 

 those who believe that a description under 

 a well-defined and well-known genus car- 

 ries with it the characters of that genus, 

 and is worse than no description at all, if 

 as in this instance, the species has totally 

 different characters. 



Here is the original description of Hy- 

 po7iomeuta ^-puncteUa, from the Cafiadian 

 Ent07nologist, vol. vii (1875), p. 7 : 



Snowy white. On the forewings are five dis- 

 tinct, circular, black spots, three of them form- 

 ing a line along the middle of the wing, the other 

 two being in the dorsal half of the wing, one of 

 them opposite the space between the first and 

 second, and the other opposite the space be- 

 tween the second and third spots. The first 

 spot is placed about the basal fourth, the second 

 about the middle, and the third about the apical 

 fourth. Hind wings silvery white, tinged with 

 gray. Al. ex ^X. inch. Bosque Co. [Tex.] 



The number of specimens examined 

 is not stated, so that we learn nothing of 

 variation, and every reader would be justi- 

 fied in assuming that the wings had the 

 peculiar venation and that there was the 

 want of maxillary palpi, with other peculi- 

 arities that characterize the genu's, Hyp one - 

 meuta. Mr. Chambers subsequently tells 

 us, in his Cincinnati paper, that eight 

 specimens were examined and showed no 

 variation. We made the mistake of trust- 

 ing in Mr. Chambers' generic reference 

 and of assuming that because his supposed 

 Pronubas were specifically identical with 

 his H. 5-putictella^ therefore they were Hy- 

 ponofneuta. This mistake on our part 

 would have been avoided had we been al- 

 lowed to critically examine the specimens 

 by denudation of the wings and other parts; 

 but the specimens were borrowed with the 

 promise that they should be returned to 

 Cambridge intact. We said and we main- 

 tain that they were Mr. Chambers' H. 5- 

 punctella, and his Cincinnati brochure is 



really an unintentional criticism of his own 

 previously published views. 



In like manner many of the fallacies 

 set forth by Mr. Boll, to which we called at- 

 tention in our paper read before the St. 

 Louis Academy, may likewise be traced to 

 observations made on Prodoxus instead of 

 Proniiba. 



The larva of Prodoxus never quits the 

 stem in which it lives. It eats comparatively 

 little, packing its pale buff-colored excre- 

 ments very tightly in its burrow, and spin- 

 ning as winter approaches a neat cocoon 

 of white silk covered on the outside with 

 its castings. Prior to forming its cocoon 

 a passage way is always made to the out- 

 side of the stem, leaving but a very thin 

 covering. In issuing, the chrysalis pushes 

 half way out, very much as is the case 

 with all other Lepidopterous endophytes. 

 Oviposition has not yet been observed. 



We thus see that, notwithstanding this de- 

 ceptive resemblance to Pronuba, Prodoxus 

 differs not only in many essential charac- 

 ters in its different stages {vide descrip- 

 tion), but likewise essentially in habit. 



Who, studying these two species in all 

 their characters and bearing, can fail to 

 conclude that, notwithstanding the essen- 

 tial differences that distinguish them not 

 only specifically but generically, they are 

 derivations from one and the same ances- 

 tral form ? Pronuba, depending for its 

 existence on the pollination of the flower, 

 is profoundly modified in the female sex 

 in adaptation to the peculiar function of 

 pollination. Prodoxus, dwelling in the 

 flesh of the fruit or in the flower-stem 

 and not depending upon the fructifi- 

 cation of the plant, is not so modified, 

 but has the ordinary characters of the 

 family in both sexes. In the former, the 

 larva quits the capsules and burrows in 

 the ground : it has legs to aid it in its 

 work, while the chrysalis is likewise beau- 

 tifully modified to adapt it to prying 

 through the ground and mounting to the 

 surface. The latter, on the contrary, never 

 quitting the stem, has no legs in the larva 

 state, and in the chrysalis state is more 

 particularly adapted, by the prominence of 



