THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. 



Vol. X. OTTAWA, JUNE, 1896. No. 3. 



ANNOTATED LIST OF SOME- NOCTUIDS TAKEN 

 AT OLDS, N.W.T. 



By John B. Smith, Sc.D. 



By the kindness of Mr. James Fletcher, Dominion Ento- 

 mologist, I received recently a little lot of Noctuids in papers, 

 " which," writes Mr. Fletcher, " I asked a friend (Mr. T. N. 

 Willing) to collect for you at Olds, North-West Territory, 

 about forty miles north of Calgary and about sixty miles east of 

 the main chain of the Rocky Mountains." The specimens were 

 not very well collected, and were in poor condition generally; but 

 they are of great interest, nevertheless, and indicate something 

 of the line of distribution of the species. I have received of 

 Mr. F. H. Wolley Dod sendings of specimens from Calgary, 

 which in part duplicate those received from Mr. Willing ; but 

 Mr. Dod's collections indicate a somewhat distinctive, more 

 typically western fauna, while at Olds, the fauna is on the whole 

 more northern and eastern. At Calgary the Atlantic and 

 Rocky Mountain faunas join for some species, so that we get 

 forms that are puzzling and intermediate in character ; at Olds 

 the northern and eastern types predominate so far as limited 

 collection makes it possible to judge. None of the peculiar or 

 new species taken by Mr. Dod at Calgary occur in this sending 

 from Olds. 



The specimens seem to have been collected at light, and 

 the dates run from May 26 to September. 2. More specifically, 

 the dates are. May 26, June 3, 4, 20, 21, July 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 



