THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 205 
more conspicuous characters. Such being the nature of this group, we 
would expect at least to find Ca/i/orniaria distributed among the different 
families, but it occurs in the same family; and in two genera Zephrosia 
and Boarmia, so intimately related that only an expert Entomologist can 
separate them correctly in every instance. 
This is not the only case in which this name is repeated by the same 
author, for in “Contributions towards a Monograph of the Bombycidæ 
of the United States,” Californica occurs four times, in the genera Pyrr- 
arctia, Leucarctia, Phyganidia and Clistocampa, the first three of which 
are in the same family, and would have been referred to the same genus, 
Arctia, ten years ago. Here are fourteen species described by one author 
under one name, which should not properly have been used at all, for 
there already exist nine species of Lepidoptera described by previous 
Entomologists as Californica. In a paper on Geometridæ in the sth 
Report of the Peabody Academy of Science, we find three species having 
the name of Sw/phuraria, which has already been much used in Lepidop- 
tera. 
It seems to us that this repetition in species of the same group and 
country cannot fail to cause confusion, and to render our nomenclature, 
the condition of which is at present deplorable, still more difficult to 
straighten out. 
There certainly is no warrant in the works of the writers on Lepidop- 
tera for such a proceeding, and Guenee, the great anthority for Noctuilites 
and Phalaenites, is scrupulously careful in this regard, and of the hundreds 
of species which he described, in not a single instance is the name 
repeated. 
NOTES ON COSMIA ORINA, GUENEE. 
BY AUG. R. GROTE., BUFFALO, N. Y. 
Mr. Wm. Saunders has sent me, under the number 115, specimens of 
a Noctuid “ from larvae found on oak, imago July roth,” which I regard 
as this species. The moth is variable in general colour and the appear- 
ance of the discal spots, and hence Guenée’s description will not always 
literally apply. The only difference of importance I can see is that the 
two median trapezoidal lines on the fore wings are wider apart on the 
internal margin than in my specimens of the European #apezina. Guenée 
