CHAPTER XV. 
J X SECTS LIABLE TO BE MISTAKEN FOB ALETIA. 
In the course of t lie 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 cade was especially mentioned of Aspila virescens, 
the pupa* of which were plowed Up in large numbers and mistaken for 
Aletia 01 her pupae of allied species are in like manner often mistaken 
for those of the Cotton Worm. There are a number of Noctuid moths 
which have been frequently sent to us during the winter as true Alctias 
and as furnishing proof of the hibernation of this last. In this chapter 
we desire to illustrate the characters of the most important, such as 
those already mentioned in discussing the question of hibernation (pp. 
17-10), 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 [HeUothu armigcra Iliibn.), 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 crosa, A. exacta, 
Lvucania unipuncta, Aspila virescens, Draxteria crvchtca. Laphygma frugi- 
perda, Platyhypena scabra, and Pltoberia atom<tris. 
Anomis krosa llubner. 
[Plate II, Figs. 1, 2, 3.] 
The following account of this species 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 
last 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- 
ducing plant, 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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