87 



otherwise unhealthy plants, such as are infested with " scale," and mostly with the 

 tumors of the ' ' woolly aphis ' ' upon their roots. This last condition is usually 

 accompanied by bad cultivation. 



In the Pacific Rural Press of June 25, 1887 (vol. 33, p. 559), a letter 

 by Dr. Riley addressed to Mr. I. A. Wilcox, Santa Clara, Cal. , is pub- 

 lished. The species is here mentioned as JEgeria impropria Hv . Edw. , 

 b} r which name it also received mention in most subsequent publica- 

 tions bearing upon the biology of this insect. 



At a meeting of the Entomological Society of Washington, held 

 June 2, 1887 (see Proceedings, Vol. I, p. 85, published March 1, 1888), 

 specimens of the several stages of this species were exhibited by Dr. 

 Riley with the statement that it was injurious in the larval stage to 

 strawberries in southern California. He stated that he had for several 

 years known that great injury to the roots of strawberry was occasioned 

 by some lepidopterous borer, but the species had remained undeter- 

 mined until about that time. 



In 1888 Mr. W. G. Klee, State inspector of fruit pests, gave a popu- 

 lar account of this species in the Third Biennial Report of the State 

 Board of Horticulture of California for that year (pp. 213, 2H:). This 

 includes an illustration of the three stages of the insect and a state- 

 ment that the common practice of flooding the vines has a great tend- 

 ency to kill out the insect when in the larval stage, the opinion being 

 expressed that if the water were retained for four or five days during 

 the winter over the plants all larvae would probably be killed. 



In August of the same year Mr. Rivers published a second note on 

 this insect with an account of its occurrence in the roots of cultivated 

 blackberry. It was found equally at home in this plant, and caused 

 the foliage and fruit to be dwarfed, dried, and valueless. (Entom. 

 Amer., Vol. IV, p. 99.) 



Recently Messrs. C. V. Piper and R. W. Doane gave a popular 

 economic account of this species in Bulletin 35 of the Washington 

 State Agricultural Experiment Station, dated May, 1898 (pp. 13-17), 

 and during 1899 a short general account by Dr. Otto Lugger was 

 published in that writer's Fourth Annual Report as Entomologist of 

 Minnesota, page 61. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIES. 



According to recent studies of Mr. Beutenmuller on the Sesiidae of 

 North America, the insect in question must be referred to the species 

 described by Henry Edwards in November, 1881, in Papilio (Vol. I, 

 pp. 186, 187), under the name of Albwia rutilans. The type was a 

 single female captured at Virginia City, Nev. 



The adult, like other species of the Sesiidee or clear- winged moths, 

 is noticeable on account of the transparency of the wings, particularly 

 of the hinder pair, the slender body, and the tuft of the apex of the 

 abdomen, which, in life, is spread out like a fan. The moths are 



