224 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [May, '13 



waved, transverse line rounded outward past reniform; these lines 

 simple and defined in brown, subterminal line vague, a finely penciled 

 black line at base of fringes; claviform wanting; orbicular usually- 

 wanting, rarely a vague ring; reniform a pure white lunule or angu- 

 lated crescent in a black setting. Secondaries show ground color more 

 or less diffused with black, the discal lunule and mesial line drawn in 

 black powderings. The female is usually lighter due to less of the 

 overlaid powderings. 



Expanse, 34-35 mm. ; size very constant. 



Genitalia of male are of a unique pattern, departing materially from 

 the nictitans group, and are best understood by a reference to the fig- 

 ure. 



Type locality. — Milton Point section of Rye, inception of 

 Forest and Stuyvesant Avenues, X. 85 deg., E. 302.5 meters ; 

 West Chester County. N. Y., U. S. A. 



Forty bred specimens are at hand. A male type is so label- 

 ed in author's collection, and paratypes have been forwarded 

 to the U. S. National and the British Museums. 



The variety differs chiefly in the absence of a well-indicated 

 orbicular. Knowing the value of genitalic comparisons in the 

 closely allied species, where the differences of the imagos are 

 slight, we feel there may be further departures from these 

 characters of the type form. 



The work of the larva is easily overlooked. Tripsacinn 

 sends up such a mass of culms that those dwarfed by the 

 borers are soon overtopped by the normal growth. The young 

 larvae, having hatched out about the first week in May. work 

 down in the tender center of the culms, when they have grown 

 but a few inches. The individual culms arise from hard 

 nodules, or corms. arranged in a great spreading root-clump, 

 and the boring is confined to the base, though never entering 

 the corm. The dwarfed stem that arises does not develop a 

 flowering spike, and the burrow is but a few inches in length. 

 At first the frass is thrown out. later the gallery becomes 

 rather clogged with it. The larva seems always tightly jam- 

 med in the boring, for the rapidly growing leaves enfold it in 

 an ever tightening envelope. As the leaves conduct moisture 

 down to their bases, these galleries get in a very unwholesome 

 condition, and become congenial haunts for several dipterous 

 species. Two of these are species of Drosophila apparently, 



