Cambridge Entomological Club, 1874
PSYCHE

A Journal of Entomology

founded in 1874 by the Cambridge Entomological Club
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Article beginning on page 328.
Psyche 7:328, 1894.

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328 PLY 2/-CHE. [January 1806.
THE ARCTIC LYMANTRIID LARVA FROM MT. WASHINGTON, N, 11. (DASTCH/RA ROSSII CURT.?)
About twenty years ago. Mr. Grote
recorded (Psyche, I, 131) the capture
on Mt. Washington, above timber line,
of an Arctic form of Lymantriidae which
he referred to as a variety of L a h ros- sii Curtis. Last summer a i-iiiinber of
larvae occurred to me on Vaccinium and
Bettila near the summit which I believe
to be the larvae of this species.
Others
werefound by Mrs. A. T. Slosson und,
near the top of Mt. Adams, by Master
Richard Seager. The larvae do not
agree with Dr. Packard's description of
Laria rassii (Ainer. Nat. xi, 52) taken
by the Polaris expedition in
northern
Greenland, but neither did his moths
quite correspond, and he may have limi
before him examples of" Dasychira
penlandica in which the hind wings
are colored as he describes. The orig'iiinl locality for rmti in Boothin is much
nearer to our own region than is north-
ern Greenland, and true rossii has been
recorded from Labrador by Christoph
and MGschler ; hence it seems probable
that the Mt. Washington race should
prove mo're like these. The moths are
actually so, allowing the yellowish color on the hind wings.
There seems little doubt but that
these ~rc& forms are branches of a
race represented in Europe by Dasy-
chira selenitica, If we remove from
the larva of selenitica the slender hair pencils which itrise from joints 2 and
12, we should have a very dose ap-
proxiiniition to the larva described by
Dr. Packard ; and if we further modify
the same larva by adding tufts on joints 10 and ri, like those already present on joints c; to 9 and 12, we should have
practically the Mt. Washington larva.
Curtis describes the larva of D. ?*oss~~ as follows: " Large and
liaisy, of a
beautiful shining velvety l~lacl<~ the
hairs being somewhat ocherous ; there
are two tufts of black on the back, fol- lowed by two of orange." Unfortu-
nately this meagre slatenient leaves the qtiestion open as to whether 1). ~-O.T.S// is like Dr. Packard's larva or mine.
Perhaps the '' two black and two orange
tufts" refers to the younger stages; it
cannot refer 1.0 either Dr. Pficlianl'a
mature larva or to mine. In the rest..
of the description there is no mention
of the absence of tufts from joints 10
and I I, and the presumption would be
that the larvae were uniformly tufted
like my Mt. Washington ones. How-
ever, I recognize that too much weight
should not be given to omissions in
such iinperl'ect descriptions.
The following is a description of the Mt. Washington larvae : Head rounded, velvety brown-black, densely hairy ; clypeus black, smooth; a reddish shade on the posterior side of head; width 3.2 mm. Wnrts normal



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for the Lyrnantriidac: three above the stig matal wart on joints 3 and 4; wart i mod- erately large on abdomen: wart i+ very
small, behind Llie spiracle; leg plates dis- tinct. Dorsal eversible areas on joints 10 and n normal, whitish, more or less con- cealed by the hail, often completely so. Body black with a frost.^ gray shade; hair thick, all barhuled, some heavily fen-tliered but none plumed. Tufts from warts i on
joints .; to 9 and 12 a little more closely bunched, but no true tufts and no pencils. Hair gray, mixed with black, with bright yel- low hairs on the lower side of wart ii on joints 5 to 13 and.at the bases of all the hair bunches on the thorax. Subventral hair
bunches small. The gray hairs are densely feathery on warts i to v, the black arid yel- low ones only spinulose. Hair not very
long, quite even hut not regularly so.
NOTES ON THE SPECIES OF EXORISTA OF TEMPERATE NORTH AMERICA.
BY C. 11. TYLER TOWNSEND, LAS CRUCES, X. HEX. . Y
J lie following twelve species of Exs-
ristcz all belong to the middle and
eastern United States with one excep-
tion, B. Zagom being from Guanajuato
on the Mexican tableland. They coin-
prisc all the species that I have so far been able to recognize from the tem-
perate portions of North America.
None of the twenty-seven Mexican
species described by Mr. v. d. Wulp
.are included. They mostly belong to
the neotropical fauna. I am under
many obligations to Mr. S. H. Scudder
for sending me, some years ago, the
types of the dipterous parasites men-
tiohed in his B~~tterllies of the Eastern United States and Canada. It was a
study of these, and comparison of them
with other typeswhich I then possessed,
that enabled me to prepare the follow-
ing table of Bxorisia, as well as a
similar one of the allied genera Masi-
cera and P?zorocera, I have examined
all the species mentioned in the table.
Table of Species.
I. Palpi wholly black or dark brown-
ish . 2
Palpi wholly or parth yeilow 01
rufous yellow . 5
2. Second abdominal segment with
both discal and niaiginal macro-
chaetae . 3
Second segment with only marginal
macrochaetae 4.
3. Anal segment unusually bristly,
rather strongly and thickly so
7~irsutu
Abdomen with only the usual
bristles . . nigripa Zpis
4. Anal segment brassy yellow polli-
nose . . futiiis
Abdomen shining black and silvery,
without brassy pollen on anal
segment . . theclarum
5. Second and third segments with both
discal and margin:il macrocliaetx
6




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