260 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, ’08 
Notes on Erebus odoratus L. 
By C. H. Fernatp, Amherst, Mass. 
In the February number of Ent. News, page 83, Dr. Was, 
gave his experience in capturing Erebus odora L. in Oostburg, 
Wis. 
This insect was first named Phalaena (Bombyx) odorata 
Linn. in the Systema Nature, ed. X, Vol. 1, page 505, 1758, 
and the same name was given in Clerck’s Icones with a very 
fine colored figure of the female. In the twelfth edition of his 
Systema Nature, Vol. 1, Part 11, page 811, 1767, Linnaeus 
changed the name to Phalaena (Attacus) Odora. Why it was 
changed from odorata to odora is not clear to me. Formerly, 
entomologists made use of the twelfth edition of the Systema 
Nature and only in recent times has the tenth edition been 
adopted as a starting point in Zoology. This accounts for the 
general use of the later name, odora, instead of the older one, 
odorata, Aurivillius has given a comparatively full synonomy 
of this insect in earlier works, in his Recensio Critica Lepidop- 
terorum Musei Ludovice Ulricze que descripsit Carolus A 
Linné, pages 151, and 152, 1882, which work seems to have 
been generally overlooked in this country. In accordance with 
the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, Articles 26 
and 27, this insect should be known by the name of Erebus 
odoratus (L.). 
Two specimens of this insect were taken on the same evening 
last summer in the city of Boston. One flew into an office in 
the Tremont building and the other flew into an open window of 
the Governor’s office in the State House but a short distance 
away. In 1872 a specimen was found resting on one of the 
buildings at the University of Maine, at Orono, Maine, nine 
miles north of Bangor, which is in latitude 44° 54” 2” N., the 
farthest north that I have heard of the capture of this species. 
The question whether this and other southern insects as the 
cotton worm, fly over seemingly enormous distances and are 
finally captured in these northern latitudes ; whether they are ac- 
cidentally carried north in the pupal stage; or whether they 
