SMERINTHUS GEMINATUS. 
57 
Under surface ; primaries, basal half rosy ; a dark reddish brown median line, the space from thence to 
exterior margin marked nearly as on upper side, but more obscure. Secondaries, brown ; a white discal mark ; 
a red brown transverse line, half-way between this and posterior margin are two parallel transverse white 
lines, with faint indications of a third one between them ; a dark brown patch at anal angle. 
Female. Exjiands 24 to 3J inches, and is marked and colored like the male. 
Larva, 2 inches in length ; pale green, lightest above, with yellow lateral granulated stripes ; caudal horn 
violet ; stigmata red. It feeds on the willow. 
Habitat. Mass., N. York, Penna., Md., Va., 111., Ky., &c. 
Mr. Lintner has perfected the history of this species in his Entomological Contributions,* where he has 
followed it through all its stages with his usual conscientious and exhaustive exactness, an example which 
cannot be sufficiently commended. He there states, the egg is slightly flattened, and of pale green color. His 
observations also establish the fact of this species being double brooded, the two broods occurring in Juno and 
August. From eggs deposited June the 12th the larvae issued on the 19th, and by the 26th all had under- 
gone their first molt, on the 30th the second took place, and on July the 4th they patriotically commenced to 
throw off their last old garment; eight days later, after only these three moltings, they went into the ground; 
the first imago emerged on the 30th of July, and the last on the 10th of August. He obtained from thirty-six 
larvae thirty-one imagines, among them a female of the variety “ Jamaicensis,” the description of which follows 
this. 
In juxtaposition to the accurateness of the paper above alluded to, we would refer to page 211 of Morris’ 
Synopsis, published in 1862, where we find the following description of Geminatus, which includes every word 
that is there mentioned of the secondaries ; “ Posterior wings rosy, along exterior and terminal border yellow r - 
ish gray; ocellus black, emitting a short broad line to inner angle, and with two or three blue pupils;” this is 
quoted from Dr. Clemens, and his name is appended thereto by the conscientious compiler, who in a measure 
saved himself thereby, but in a measure only, for Dr. Morris was too old an entomologist not to know the 
characteristics of this species, and too good a scholar not to know better than that Geminatus, as its name indi- 
cates, would have but two marks or pupils, and two only, and in his case we can only ascribe it to sheer care- 
lessness. But this ridiculous error was not to stop here, for on turning to page 275 of Packard’s Guide, (1869,) 
in the article already referred to in our remarks on S. Excaecata, we read, “ S. Geminatus, Say, is so called 
from the two or three blue pupils in the black ocellus, the hind wings are rosy;” (his is all the author says of 
Geminatus, (except that “ the pupa has been found at the roots of willows,” ) and it is certainly enough, and to 
spare, of the kind ; although there is neither authority or quotation marks given by Dr. Packard in the above, 
we still apprehend that he derived the information regarding the three pupils from the same source ; might it 
not, perhaps, have been as well for the author, ere he commenced writing, to have given the subject at least a 
little superficial attention, or to have even taken a mere glance at examples of two of our commonest species, 
which are to be found in every schoolboy’s collection, in order to ascertain that Excaecata had but one pupil, 
and that Geminatus had only two, and not “two or three;” in that event the student would probably not 
have been enlightened with the rather original information that the insect derived its name from having two 
or three pupils in the ocellus, and that the term geminate could with equal propriety be applied to things 
trinal as well as binate. 
Yar. JAMAICENSIS, Drury, Illust. Exotic Entomology, Vol. II, p. 43, t. 25, (1 773.) 
(PLATE VII, FIG. 8, $.) 
Color and ornamentation nearly as in the ordinary form, with the exception of the black ocellus of second- 
aries, which encloses but one blue spot instead of two. 
I have seen but two examples, the first, (which is the original of my fig. 8,) was captured near Baltimore, 
by Mr. J. P. Wild, about fifteen years since, and is at present in my possession ; from the time I first received it 
I regarded it as Drury’s Jamaicensis, but, of course, could not determine its position as a true species, or as 
merely a variety of Geminatus, although I always inclined to the latter opinion, which was at length con- 
firmed, and the mooted question, of what Drury’s figure was meant to represent, was at last put to rest by the 
careful observations of Mr. Lintner, who had the rare fortune, before referred to, of raising an example f from 
eggs deposited by a pinned specimen of Geminatus ; this example, which I have had the opportunity of exam- 
ining and comparing with mine, is a little larger, being about 2J inches in expanse; and “just below the first 
median nervule ” the two bands which cross the middle of the wing are nearer to each other than in my exam- 
ple or in examples of Geminatus ; in this respect, as in most others, it accords with Drury’s figure. The blue 
* Entomological Contributions No. II, by J. A. Lintner, in the Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the New York State Museum of Natural 
History, p. 119-127. (1870.) 
t “ Variety. — Among the above imagines was a female, having but a single blue pupil on the black ocellated spot of the secondaries.” Lintner, 
Ent. Contributions in the 24th Report N. York State Mus. Nat. Hist., p. 122. (1870.) 
