Article beginning on page 529.
Psyche 6:529, 1891.

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PSYCHE.
NOTES ON GLUPHISIA.
BY HARRISON G. DYAR, NEW YORK CITY.
Dr. Packard lias recorded his opinion
concerning the species of Gluphisia in
the August number of Psyche. From
an examination of the same material, I
have reached somewhat different con-
clusions, and it may not be without
interest to compare the two views.
The principal difference is in regard to G. wrightii. Dr. Packard considers it
to be close to G. severa while I regard
it as the 9 of G. &ofascia. I think
that Dr. Packard has allowed himself
to be led too closely by the statements
of Henry Edwards, published with his
original description. As in the case of
Ichthyura ch'firia, where Dr. Packard
has simply copied Edwards's statement
as to the relationship of that species, so here he repeats this course. I have
shown that I. bz'firia is not at all
closely related to I. hcei as stated
by Edwards, and, in the present case,
G. wrightii, to my eye, bears no close
relation to G. severa. I would cer-
tainly put it in the other section of the genus. The habitat is in accord with
this arrangement, for the fauna of
southern California is essentially that
of the great arid region west of the
Rockies (when the species are not
endemic), while that of the Sierra
Nevada is largely that of the Pacific
Northwest, and thus more similar to
the Atlantic district.
Dr. Packard is inclined to consider
G. albofascia and allies as "climatic
varieties" of G. ridenda.
As he does
not define this term, I understand him
to mean that they are modified to their
present form by the direct influence of
the climate of their habitat, and that if removed to some other region, they
would not remain constant in their
characters. That this is so cannot be
assumed without proof, though the
experiments of Weismann and others,
to which Dr. Packard refers, might
seem to indicate it.
I have not been able to perform any
experiments in regard to these cases in
Gluphisia; but I have done so in
Ichthyura. There is a pale form of
I. vau in the Rocky Mountain region,
which bears much the same relation to
I. van, that G. ridenda does to G.
trilineata. Mr. C. A. Wiley had the
kindness to send me eggs of this form
from Miles City, Montana, and they
were raised in the typically eastern
climate of Boston; but produced an
imago of the pale form.* I am inclined,
-
*The larvae had but four stages while 1. vau from Boston have five, if my observations are correct. In the last case. I did not observe the stages in sequence so that there is some chance of error. (See Can. ent., June and July 1892.)




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530 PSYCHE. [ October 1893.
therefore, to regard the climatic forms
of Gluphisia as permanent, probably
produced by the action of natural selec- tion to fit them to their surroundings.
I class them as local races, by which I
mean that they are constant in their
Packard's Arrangement.
I. G. trilineata Pack.
var. ridenda Hy. Ed.
yzq2a Hy. Ed.
2. G. albofascia Hy. Ed.
foymosa Hy. Ed.
3. G. wrightii Hy. Ed.
severa Hy. Ed.
danbyi Neum.
avimacula Huds.
var. slos~oniae Pack.
4. G. lintneri Grt.
characters, but differ only slightly and in unessential particulars from the first described species.
I give below Dr. Packard's arrange-
merit of Gluphisia and my own in par-
allel columns.
Dyar's Arrangement.
I. G. trilineata Pack.
race ridenda Hy. Ed.
race quinquelinea Dyar.
2. G. albofascia Hy, Ed.
wrightii Hy. Edw.
var. rupta Hy. Ed.
3. G. Formosa Hy. Ed.
4. G. severa Hy. Ed.
var. danbyi Neum.
race avimacula Huds.
var. slossonii Pack.
5. G. lintneri Grt.
In tabular form, I separate the species as follows :- Size small ; no basal yellow dot (å Gluphisia). With a yellow (or black) central band on primaries. Markings distinct . . trilineata.
Markings confused and issorate . . formosa. Pale, with no distinct yellowish markings . . albofascia. Size large ; a basal yellow dot on median vein (å Eumelia) , A yellow angular discal dot . severa.
No yellow discal dot . Zintneri.
NOTES.-~~ September 12th I caught, in
Brookline, Mass., a large, battered Pafilio cres$hontes, which was flying rather feebly about some Salvias. It is the only one I have seen flying in Massachusetts.
At Nonquitt, Mass., Miss Ida M. Eliot and I had two larvae, Arctians unknown to us and certainly not acrea, of a cream-white color. The body was cream-white with three broken, blackish, longitudinal lines. There were no dark hairs.
These larvae we fed on
wild indigo-plant, Baptisia tinctoria, and after a few days the larger larva moulted, coming out of a deep, glossy, indigo-blue color, almost black. The smaller larva first moulted of a deep-blue gray color, then again of a deep blue like the other. These larvae grew to a length of nearly 3 inches, and were very striking in appearance.
Caroline G. Soule.




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