CHAPTER XV 



INSECTS LIABLE TO BE MISTAKEN FOR ALETIA. 



Ill the course of the Cotton Worm investigation, confusion has many 

 times arisen from the inability of observers, not practiced entomologists, 

 to distinguish Aletia from a number of allied Noctuids. In the first 

 edition of this work the case was especially mentioned of Aspila vwescens, 

 the pupie of which were plowed up in large numbers and mistaken for 

 Aletia. Other pupsB of allied species are in like manner often mistaken 

 for those of the Cotton Worm. There are a number of Koctuid moths 

 which have been frequently sent to us during the winter as true Aletias 

 and as furnishing proof ot the hibernation of this last. In this chapter 

 we desire to illustrate the chara<}ters of the most important, such as 

 those already mentioned in discussing the question of hibernation (pp. 

 17-19), and to give, also, the life- histories of two species of the genus 

 Anomis which so much resemble Aletia in their earlier states that the 

 unpracticed eye has great difficulty in distinguishing them. One of 

 the species, so frequently mistaken for Aletia in its pupa and imago 

 states, is the Boll Worm moth [Heliothis armigera Hubn.), but as 'this 

 species is considered at length in Chapter XVI of this report, we need 

 not refer to it more fully in the present chapter. The other species 

 which we shall consider in this connection are: Anomis erosa, A. exacta, 

 Leucania unipimcta, Aspila virescens, Drasieria erechtea^ Laphygmafrugi- 

 perda, Platyhypena scabra, and PJwheria atomaris. 



Anomis erosa Hiibner. 

 [Plate II, Figs. 1, 2, 3.] 



The following account of this spe<iies was published in our annual re- 

 port as Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture for 1881-'82, and 

 gives in sufficiently condensed form the facts which we wish to use here. 

 Detailed figures of all states are there given in wood-cut : 



''Of the numerous insects, the history of which we have traced in the 

 la-st few years, one species of considerable interest may here be recorded ; 

 for it is not only interesting on account of its occurrence upon a fiber-pro- 

 ducingplant, which some day may prove of considerable importance, but 

 also on account of its relations to the Cotton Worm [Aletia xylina)^ for 

 which it might easily be mistaken in its earliest stages. 



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