112 



ME. E. M'lACHLAN on THE INSECTA COLLECTED 



Heteeoceea. 

 bombyces. 



Dasychiea aR(EjfLANDiCA (WocJce), HomeyeVj Zweite deutsche 

 Nordj^olarfdhrt, Bd. ii. Abtb. i. p. 409. 



One c?, lat. 82° 30', July 6th {Feilden) \ also numerous larvae 

 (in fluid) in various stages of growth from Hayes Sound, Dumb-Bell 

 Lake, Cape Joseph Henry (82°45'),&c., collected by Capt. Feilden, 

 and some from Discovery Bay by Mr. Hart ; cocoons from Hayes 

 Sound, Dobbin Bay, Franklin- Pierce Bay, &c. (from one of these 

 a parasitic dipterous insect of the family Tachinidae had emerged). 

 The largest larva is fully IJ inch long. Capt. Feilden informs 

 me that the principal food-plant is Saxifraga oppositifolia ; but 

 Salix arctica is also noted : in all probability the species feeds on 

 a variety of plants. It is in the British Museum from Winter 

 Cove, taken during the voyage of the ' Enterprise.' 



It was found by the second G-erman North-Polar expedition in 

 East Greenland. 



No doubt it is the insect alluded to by Dr. Packard (American 

 Naturalist, xi. p. 52) as found by the ' Polaris ' expedition; and that 

 author gives a description of the eggs, larva, cocoon, &c. He 

 identifies the species as Laria Hossii, Curtis, but, I think, in error ; 

 and Wocke is also of this opinion. Curtis's insect is no doubt a 

 true DasycJiira, and allied ; but I consider it something unknown 

 to me. D. groenlandica is a smoky-black species, strongly resem- 

 bling one of the bombyciform Greometridae of the genus Biston : 

 the anterior wings are smoky blackish, subdiaphanous, with strong 

 black neuration and a black crescentiform mark at the end of the 

 cell ; the posterior whitish grey, with fuscous neuration, and 

 without the slightest trace of the broad blackish margin so strongly 

 represented in Curtis's figure — thus, as it appears to me, pre- 

 cluding the possibility of the one being a form of the other. The 

 species indicated by Christoph (Stett. ent. Zeit. 1858, p. 310), and 

 Mceschler (Z. c, 1870, p. 252), from Labrador, is, in all probability, 

 the true Hossii. 



NoCTUJi. 



Mamestea (?) Feildeni, n. sp. 



Anterior wings rather broad, the costal margin nearly straight, 

 the apical margin oblique, but not strikingly so. The ground- 

 colour may be described as blackish varied with whitish or grey ; 



