10 BULLETIN BROOKLYN ENTOM. SOC. VOL. VI. May 1883. ] 
told me he would without anything but the imagines to go by, look up 
on it as a clearly distinct species; buta male came to a virgin female 
marginata in confinement and I feel certain it must be a variety only. This 
variety I would call Bembecra Albicoma. Of it I took 2¢'\q and 19, in 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Sesia acerni, Clem, This moth though quite common in many 
places is not often taken by collectors as it has generally flown before it is 
looked for. In the most of cases it emerges soon after sunvrise in the 
morning and flies as soon as the wings are expanded and dried which 
takes but a few minutes after emerging from the pupa. A curious fact 
is that this moth flies by night as I have had in the evening several 
attracted into my room by the light. I have never after long continued 
observation seen the sexes mated or the female laying its eggs, and am 
very strongly of the opinion that these things take place during the night. 
Mellitia cucurbitae, Harr. This moth appears on Long Island 
shortly after July rst During the summer of 1882 I captured some 30 
specimens about a small bed of summer squashes in a neighbor's garden. 
The moths fly during the day being most active during the hottest 
sunshine and quiet in the early morning. I have seen only two pairs mated 
and this was between 2 and 3 P.M. The female lays her eggs morning 
and afternoon mostly on the stalk of the plant just below the ground. 
She extends her abdomen in the crack of the ground about the stem of 
the plant and the most of the eggs I have seen were from 4 to 3 an inch 
below the surface, Often however they were laid a foot above the ground, 
and in a few instances were observed upon the petioles of the leaves. The 
- egg is oval and of a dull red color. 
In comparing my specimens I find, as with other Seszzdae, a con- 
siderable variation in appearance. The ordinary orange color is more 
marked in the female than in the male. One female had the body almost 
wholly black. In some specimens yellow takes the place of orange, and 
in one fresh male the abdomen is almost white and the fringes of the legs, 
ordinarily orange, are a very light yellow. 
I also observed the insect feeding upon the flowers of the culti- 
vated onion. 
The larva is very destructive to the early summer squashes, The 
eggs hatch and the larvee attack just as the first of the fruit approaches ma- 
turity. And in this city and the country immediately about, the 
plants almost without exception, in August suddenly wither, and die. 
The later marrow and Hubbard squashes escape, but these are planted 
late for the fall and winter market, and the plants are hardly out of the 
ground by the time of the appearance of the insects. 
