State Agricultural Society. 
901 
ITS BARITT. LARYA FEBDS ON EVENING PRIMROSE. 
Duncan, in editing the volume on Exotic Moths in Jardine’s Natu¬ 
ralist’s Library (Entomological series, vol. vii, p. 200.) This name, 
which appears to have been also suggested by the wings being so 
prettily colored, having been first published, seems entitled to stand 
as the designation of the genus. Alaria Jlorida will thus be the 
correct scientific name of our New York insect. 
Upon my becoming acquainted with this moth through the figure 
and description of M. Guen6e, I was much surprised that I had 
never met with a specimen of it. It was not till the summer of 
1858 that I first saw it in nature, an individual being then brought 
me by Wallace Freeman, jr., from Adams, Mass., where it had 
entered an open window in the evening, attracted by the light of 
the lamp. Four years later, a specimen in like manner entered 
mv own dwelling, flying rapidly and wildly around the lamp for a 
half minute, and frequently striking against the table, until falling 
upon a spot where it was shaded from the dazzling glare of the 
light, it there rested quietly until I obtained the implements for 
securing it. Finally, a flowering plant which I have recently intro¬ 
duced into my garden has been invaded by a worm which I dis¬ 
cover to be the larva of this lovely moth. A brood of these larva} 
has appeared upon this plant each of the two seasons it has now 
(1867) been blooming in my grounds, furnishing me with specimens 
of the moth, and enabling me to trace its history and transforma¬ 
tions. From these facts it appears that though this insect is so 
rare that a collector may not meet with it once in a lifetime, if cir¬ 
cumstances como to favor it, it may suddenly become common, 
temporarily, in particular localities. 
The Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis , which florists by culti¬ 
vation have improved into such a large and very splendid flower, 
is liable to have its petals amputated when they are upon the point 
of expanding from the full grown buds, and all the beauty of its 
flowers hereby destroyed, by a green sixteen-footed worm, which 
is readily known by a peculiar mark, it having two dull cherry red 
spots or blotches upon the top of its neck. 
In that magnificent variety of the CEuothera, the yrandijlora 
Lamarkiana of our florists’ catalogues, the stalk sends out a num¬ 
ber of lateral branches, each bearing a long raceme of flowers at its 
end, the raceme elongating and continuing to grow a succession of 
flowers from July to the end of the season. Thrifty plants usually 
grow in a regular pyramidal form to a height of four or fivo feet, 
