196 INSIiCUTOR INSClTlyE; MENSTRUUS 



THE LARVA OF BASILODES PEPITA GUENeE 



(Lepidoptera, Noctuida) 



By HARRISON G. DYAR 



These larvae were first noticed near Washington, D. C, by 

 Mr. A. N. Caudell about 1911. The writer accompanied him 

 to Chain Bridge September 17, 1913, and collected a number 

 on a tall coarse weed which proves to be Verbesina alternifolia. 

 No adults were reared by either of us, and a suitable oppor- 

 tunity for collecting did not recur. A larva was preserved 

 by Mr. H. S. Barber from Black Pond, Virginia, October 18, 

 1920, but breeding was not attempted. In the fall of the same 

 year Mr. Geo. P. Englehardt visited Washington and took 

 home to Brooklyn a number of the larvse. He gave me some, 

 which pupated, but failed to emerge. Mr. Englehardt was 

 himself more fortunate, and advises me of the identity of these 

 larvae, which had remained unknown to me for ten years. 



Head rounded, shallowly bilobed, wider than high ; light red, 

 the ocelli and mandible-tips black; antennae whitish, the last 

 joint black-ringed. Abdomen cylindrical, joint 12 slightly en- 

 larged dorsally, tubercles small, normal, iv behind the spiracle 

 at its upper corner. Color, whitish ground, each segment with 

 four transverse blackish bands, the first two separated and 

 partly broken by an orange-red wedge-shaped subdorsal patch ; 

 a substigmatal white band, broken into two rounded spots on 

 each segment, anteriorly and posteriorly, so as to tend to form 

 a single enlongated patch intersegmentally, the spots sur- 

 rounded by the blackish color; subventrally without bands, 

 shaded with reddish, a blackish spot over tubercle vi ; leg- 

 shields stained with black about the upper margin and across 

 middle; prothoracic shield weakly chitinized, red, a black bar 

 in front, subdorsally incised, a smaller bar behind, with de- 

 tached spots on each side ; posterior band on joints 3 and 4 

 broken ; anal shield reddish, with the tubercles marked in black. 



