CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD A MONOGRAPH OF THE NOCTUID^ OF BOREAL AMERICA.— REVISION OF XYLOMIGES AND MORRISONIA. BY John B. Smith, Sc. D. (With Plate ill.) XYLOMIGES Gn. 1852, Gn., Sp. Gen., Noct., i, 147. Eyes hairy, round, moderate. Head small, retracted, with even, short, stiff, scaly vestiture, forming superposed flattened frontal tufts. Palpi short, reaching to, but scarcely exceeding, the front. Tongue long and strong. Antennae in the male pectinated, serrate and bristled, or ciliate merely. In the female they are simple, only sparsely ciliated. Thorax robust, quadrate, convex, with a variably distinct anterior and posterior tuft. Abdomen dorsally tufted. Legs unarmed, save for the ordinary spurs of middle and hind tibiae. Primaries uarrow, trigouate, elongate, with marked apices and obliquely rounded outer margin, or short, narrow, and stumpy. From Mamestra this genus differs by the shorter palpi, the more re-tracted head, the superposed frontal tufts, the wing form, and in some instances by the pectinated antennae. From Morrisonia it differs in not having the divided thoracic crest, the thorax itself stouter, the abdomen not so long proportionately, and the primaries not retracted at anal angle nor strigate in type of macula-tiou. From Stretchia (Perigrapha) the species differ in the thoracic tuftiugs and somewhat also in wing form. Strictly, only two of our species — curialis and dolosa — are congeneric with the European conspicillaris ; but there is no safe line for the separation of any of the species, save possibly patalis, which differs by the habitus, the short stumpy wing, somewhat depressed body, and simple male antennae. Autennal char-acters are weak in the hairy eyed genera, and so indeed are most others. It is difficult to limit the genera in this series, and comparative char-acters and habitus must serve largely as guides. The lines of demar-cation between this genus aud Mamestra, Morrisonia, or even Tamio-campa are nowhere sharply defined and errors are easy, especially with imperfect or insufficient material. Proceedings National Museum, Vol. XV — No. 892. Proc. N. M. 92 5
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