172 Twenty-sixth Report on the State Museum. 



the genus, as shown in two excellent articles on some closely allied 

 and for a long time confused European species, published in the 

 Stettiner Ent. Zeit.^ in 1858 and 1859 ; also in his s^aluable paper 

 published in the same journal in 1870, and a translation given in the 

 23<i Ann, Report on the N. Y. State. Cabinet, but for which paper 

 our intermedia might yet haye been regarded identical with the quite 

 dissimilar urnbratica of Europe. 



The detection of this interesting species is due to the indefatigable 

 zeal in collecting, of Mr. Otto Meske, of Albany, and to his ready 

 perception of new Lepidopterous forms or features. A pair, in per- 

 fect condition, are in his cabinet, from which the above description 

 is drawn, and, as they are the only examples which have come under 

 my observation, it is probably quite rare. The female was taken by 

 him, at Albany, on the 6th of June ; the male was found at Sharon 

 Springs, ]^. Y., on the 15th of August, at rest upon a fence, and was 

 recognized, before being pinned, as differing from intermedia. 



The description has been carefully drawn and extended, perhaps, to 

 an unusual degree of minuteness, for the reason that the genus pre- 

 sents us with species which can only be separated from one another, 

 in the imago state by very careful discrimination, and requiring for 

 tlieir identification, a faithful delineation of inconspicuous features. 

 M. Guenee, in his Species General des Lepidopteres, remarks, that in 

 CucuUia ^' it frequently occurs that caterpillars the most different, it 

 might almost be said, the most opposite, produce moths so very near, 

 that it is only by great care that they can be distinguished." In 

 remarking on G. lucifuga Roesel, he says : " The lucifuga of Treits- 

 chke appears to me a lacttocm; that of Duponchel is a chamomillm ; 

 that of Borkhausen seems an umh7'atiGa, 2i^ also those of Stephens 

 and Esper." The greatest confusion has existed in regard to G. blat- 

 tarim^ for, according to Guenee, the caninm of Rambur and the thap- 

 siphaga of Duponchel are identical with the true hlattarim of Esper ; 

 the blattaricB of Her.-Sch. is thapsiphaga Treitschke ; the hlattaricB 

 of Boisduval is scrophularivora Eambur ; the hlattarim of Duponchel 

 \!& pjrenanthis Boisduval. Thapsiphaga figures as synonyms of three 

 different species. Umbratica Linn, appears as lactucce of Fabricius ?, 

 Hubner, Treitschke, Haworth and Stephens, the lucifuga of Esper 

 and Borkhausen, and the taneceti of Stephens. Lychnitis Engramelle 

 and scTophularim W.-Y. so strongly resemble one another that seve- 

 ral authors have believed them to be identical. Esper figures both as 

 the same species, but according to Speyer, there can be no doubt 



