1874.] 207 [Maun. 



freed for nearly twenty years from the ravages of the canker-worm 

 [at Roxbury] our orchards are again overrun with them, and some 

 of the most valuable trees of our country are threatened with de- 

 struction." Mr. J. Lowell, the author of the last quotation, says, 

 I. c, p. 317, " the insects rise in the fall." 



Have we spanned the interval within which the relative impor- 

 tance of A. vemata sank, and that of A. pometaria arose? In the 

 Journal last cited, Jan., 1816, Vol. iv, p. 89, Peck says, "It is cer- 

 tainly true that the canker moths rise in the autumn and deposit 

 their eggs." But, he says, p. 90, " Those which rise in November 

 are not very numerous, compared with those that rise in the spring." 

 This certainly argues against my suggestion, if it is supposed to have 

 been founded upon new observations, but not if it is merely a re- 

 newal of the statements made in 1795. 



Harris, in his Report, in 1841, by an ingenious turn of expression, 

 properly distinguished the males by description, without committing 

 himself upon the question of their distinctness as species. The ob- 

 scurity of his determining sentences, which 1 believe was intentional, 

 as indicating the hesitation in his own mind, seems to have misled 

 nearly all his successors. I have no doubt that he failed to be con- 

 vinced of the distinctness of the species. His account of the habits 

 is confounded with that given by Peck, in such a manner as to need 

 revision. Among his manuscripts in the Library of this Society, I 

 have found a figure of the male, female and egg of A. pometaria, 

 which is labelled Anisopteryx vemata. 



The text of Harris' work remains unchanged in regard to these 

 species through the successive editions, as far as I am aware, but in 

 the third edition (1862) the figures of A. pometaria have been insert- 

 ed under the usual misapprehension. 



The Harris Collection contains sixteen specimens of both species 

 together, eleven males and five females. When the collection was 

 arranged by the former Secretary of the Society, Mr. S. H. Scudder, 

 printed Nos., with letters of the alphabet, were attached to each 

 specimen, so that they can be referred to separately. In the follow- 

 ing table I give in the first column these tickets ; in the second col- 

 umn are Harris' Manuscript labels, corresponding as far as they go 

 to Ijis MS. Catalogue, from which I transcribe the proper portion ; in 

 the third column is the indication of the sex of the specimen ; and in 

 the fourth column the right name of the species. 



