MACROGLOSSA RUFICAUDIS. Kirby. 
(, Sesia B.) Fauna Boreali Americana, Yol. IV, p. 303 (1837). Walker , C. B. M., Yol. VIII, p. 82 (1856). Morris, Cat. Lep. N. Am., 
p. 17 (1860 ;) Synopsis Lep. N. Am., p. 149 (1862). Couper, Can. Ent., Vol. IV, p. 205 (1872). 
Hcemorrhagia Buficaudis, Grote & Bobinson, Proc. Ent. Soc., Phil., Vol. V, pp. 149, 175 (1865). 
Hcemorrhagia Buffaloensis, Grote & Bobinson, Ann. Lvc. Nat. Hist. N. Y., Vol. VIII, (1867); List Lep. N. Am., p. 3 (1868). Grote, 
Bull. Buff. Soc. Nat. Sc., Vol. I, p. 18 (1873), Vol. II, p. 224 (1875). 
Sesia Uniformis, Grote & Bobinson, Trans. Am. Ent. Soc., Vol. II, p. 181 (1868). Lintner, 23d Report N. Y. State Cabinet Nat, Hist., 
p. 172 (1872). 
Hcemorrhagia TJniformis, Grote & Bobinson, List. Lep. N. Am., p. 3 (1868). Grote, Bull. Buff. Soc. Nat. Sc., Vol. I, p. 18 (1873) ; 
Vol. II, p. 224 (1875). 
(PLATE XIII, FIG. 1, cjY) 
“Body yellow-olive, underneath pale yellow. Antennas black; primaries reddish-brown, hyaline in the disk, with the hyaline 
part half divided towards the base, with a costal bar, covered with yellow olive hairs at the base ; underneath the costa, the posterior 
margin and the nervures are dark ferruginous ; there is also a yellow stripe on the inner side of the base ; secondaries hyaline in the 
disk; base externally and costa yellow; internally the base is ferruginous; underneath the dark part of the wing is ferruginous, and 
the base pale yellow; two first segments of the body yellow-olive, two next black, the rest ferruginous with pale yellow lateral spots. 
This species appears to be the American representative of Sesia fuciformis which it greatly resembles, but differs in the colour of the 
tail and the base of the secondaries.” 
No figure accompanied the above description of Kirby’s, but there can be little doubt that a species allied to Thysbe was in- 
tended. 
Walker, in C. B. M., says : “This is probably a mere variety of S. Thysbe ,” and states that specimens were received from “Uni- 
ted States, Trenton Falls, New York, and Orilla, West Canada.” 
Dr. Clemens, in his monograph of the Sphingidae, published in the Journal Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1859, also 
cites it as a synonym of Thysbe. 
Grote and Robinson first stated it to be distinct from Thysbe in Proc. Ent. Soc., Phila., Vol. V, p. 149, and placed it in their genus 
Hcemorrhagia ; on page 175, 1. c., they give Kirby’s description above cited, and remark “were we satisfied as to the species Kirby in- 
fended by S. Fuciformis, the present species might be regarded as related to S. Diffinis, Boisd. sp. As it is, we think that a species of 
Hcemorrhagia is meant, while the species has not been since identified,” and further on “a mutilated specimen from the most northern 
parts of Canada West is before us, which evidently forms a distinct species from H. Thysbe. In this species, which is altogether slen- 
derer than its congenor, the inuer margin of the terminal band of anterior wings is nowhere denticulate in the interspaces, but is medi- 
ally, somewhat inwardly, produced.) We are not indisposed to regard this as Kirby’s species, but the inferior condition of the specimen 
prevents all conclusions. The cliscal cell is crossed by a longitudinal scale line, the species belonging to the more typical group of the 
genus Hcemorrhagia.” Three years later they re-described the species as Sesia Thysbe, variety uniformis, thus : “As Sesia thysbe, a 
uniformis nob., we w r ill record the Sesia ruficaudis of Mr. Walker. This is not Kirby’s species , to judge from the description of that au- 
thor. This is a form of S. thysbe, occurring in both sexes, in which the external border of th"e primaries is not dentate inwardly on 
the interspaces.”* 
Although another specific synonym was here created on the assumption that Grote & Robinson knew more about Kirby’s species 
than himself, still their fictitious genus Hcemorrhagia w as for the time, sensibly enough, suppressed by them, for after a rhodomontade of 
thinly-veiled and confused excuses in reference to Hcemorrhagia, they say “which latter we can, therefore, no longer consider sufficiently 
distinct from Sesia to be retained as a genus.” And it was only after Mr. Robinson’s death that Grote again attempted to restore it in 
one of his innumerable and ever-changing spasmodic Lists of N. Am. Sphingidte, etc., which, like mushrooms, spring up in every 
issue of the Buffalo Bull, and kindred publications. 
There can be little doubt that the species I have figured, which was the one redescribed by Grote & Robinson as Uciiformis, is the 
one meant by Kirby in his description of Buficaudis. The older authors did not lay the same stress on elaborately decorated descrip- 
tions as do some of the present day, hence there are frequently trifling omissions or vague sentences in their descriptions, and in some 
instances, as in Sm. Opthalmicus, Bdl., a line or two sufficed to describe the insect, and although said description would apply to almost 
any of the eyed Smerinthi having rosy hind wings, no one would endeavour on this account to question or ignore Boisduval’s species. 
Buficaudis occurs in various parts of the Middle and New England States, and more plentifully in Canada and the neighboring 
island of Anticosti, as also in S. Labrador. 
The most prominent point of distinction between this and Thysbe is the inner edge of marginal band of primaries which is 
toothed in the latter, whilst plain in Buficaudis, though increased inwardly in the middle, as in Thysbe. 
Between Buficaudis, Kirby, ( Uniformis, G. & R.) and Buffaloensis, G & R., I cannot find any specific differences by 
which to separate them into distinct species. In concluding the description of Buffaloensis the authors say : “This species is 
closely allied to H. thysbe G. & B., from which it may at once be separated by its smaller size and the non-dentate inner 
margin of the terminal band of the primaries in the male. We have elsewhere drawn attention to the character afforded by the inner 
margin of the terminal band in H. thysbe ; it is, however, in the males alone that it is prominently dentate on the interspaces.”! Con- 
sequently there would be nothing to separate it from Buficaudis, (their Uniformis) , which is also without indentations on inner edge of 
marginal band, excepting its “smaller size,” which also ceases to be a distinction, as an example which I received from Mr. Grote himself 
in May, 1873, is quite as large as that of Buficaudis figured in the accompanying plate. 
The authors finally state in connection with their published figures : “We figure a variety of the female, in which the usually 
wholly vitreous fields of the wings are sparsely and evenly clothed with scales. We have observed a similar variation in specimens 
of H. thysbe.” 
This makes the attempt of placing Buffaloensis, G & R., as a distinct species further objectionable, as the authors were ignorant that 
Thysbe and all allied species have, on emerging from the pupa, the transparent space of the wings lightly covered with scales, which 
soon disappear under the action of flight or by exposure. 
*Trans. Am. Ent. Soc., Vol. II, p. 181. 
fAbout two years later the authors discovered their error, and became aware that the females of Thysbe, (the commonest of all 
the N. Am. species,) had the inner edge to the marginal band of primaries dentate as well as the males ; and then it was that Buficaudis, 
Kirby, was bisexed and again synonymized as Uniformis, G. & R. 
109 
