[100] 



specimens broadens at the sutures, producing thereby a row of more or less distinct 

 yellowisli, slightly swollen spots in the region of the stigmata. All warts surrounded 

 by a white annulus, those on dorsum sometimes obsolete. Stigmata brownish with 

 white annulus. Anal plate yellowish with a transverse row of four larger black spots, 

 and four smaller ones at posterior margin. All legs yellowish. 



Pupa. — Average length, 18™™. General color dark brown ; posterior, flexile portion 

 of abdominal joints 4-6 dark yellow ; head, thorax and wing-sheaths very finely and 

 closely granulate ; abdomen also finely granulate, the granulations concave in the 

 center ; flexile borders very finely punctate. Head rather small, well set off from the 

 thorax. Wing-casos broad, reaching to posterior margin of the fourth abdominal 

 joint. Cremaster dark brown or blackish, ample, parallel, rounded at tip, slightly 

 bent ventrally where there is at base an anal concavity ; rugose, with strong carina 

 dorsally, extending to base of terminal joint; booklets yellowish-brown, eight in 

 number, two dorsal and two lateral short, and four terminal which are longer, the 

 middle pair longest. 



Note 4 (p. 6). — In alcoholic specimens the first pair often appear as mere tubercles 

 without clasping hooks, but these really exist, though withdrawn from sight. The 

 legs are perfect, therefore, and simply atrophied. In this respect the larva of Aletia 

 xylma (Say) differs from that of Anomis texana Eiley, which occurs in South Texas, 

 for in this last species the claspers are wanting and the legs really obsolete and re- 

 placed by mere tubercles. Otherwise the resemblance between the two larvae is such 

 as to cause them to be easily confounded. 



Note 5 (p. 7). — The larva of Flusia dyaus Grote is not uncommon in spring and 

 early summer on cotton. Being a semi-looper and bearing in color and mode of 

 pupation a general resemblance to the Aletia larva, it is often mistaken therefor by 

 ]3lanters. It is invariably pale green, without dark shades, and may have helped to 

 the popular belief in the first worms being green. But while we have invariably found 

 dark individuals among the, earliest and throughout the summer generations, we were 

 struck daring a trip made October, 1879, through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, 

 by their great preponderance, the intensity of the black (often obliterating, the white 

 annuli and subdorsal stripes), and the early stage of growth (often after the first 

 molt and very generally after the second) in which it appeared. In the spring and 

 early summer the black is more often confined to the fifth and sixth stages. 



Note 6 (p. 7). — The young larva of Spilosoma aerea makes somewhat similar but 

 larger blotches. 



Note 7 (p. 8). — Mr. Schwarz succeeded in feeding one from the hatching period 

 till it transformed to chrysalis on a species of Morning-glory (Ipomcea commutafa Roem. 

 & Sch.), but the chrysalis waB imperfect, ^nd finally perished. We find that quite 

 a number of iDersons believe that the worm feeds on Abutilon and Pokeweed (Phyto- 

 lacca), but the belief rests solely on the fact that these plants are often defoliated 

 when the Cotton "Worm is stripping the cotton fields. In the case of Phytolacca it is 

 an entirely different worm (the Geometrid PMlereme alhosignaia Packard) which does 

 the work, and the same is doubtless true of the Abutilon. Mr. Phillip Winfree, of 

 Mulberry Creek, La. (De Bow's Ind. Ees. of S. & S. W., 1852, p. 173), remarks that 

 it feeds in the West Indies on a plant called the salve bush, resembling somewhat 

 the common Mullein. There is great liability to error, however, in observations of 

 this kind, on account of the great resemblance in the earlier larval stages of several 

 closely allied species. This subject of possible food-plants of Aletia xylina is more 

 fully considered in Note 15 of this same report. 



Note 8 (p. 9). — The male genitalia in this species are remarkable for having two 

 extensile organs, usually retracted and showing as dense tufts of hair, but capable of 

 extension to thrice the length of the rest of the armature; also for two attenuated 

 double-jointed spines which lie when at rest in a sheath on one side of the penis, 



