In a collection of Hemiptera sent me some time since for identification, were two male specimens of a coccid, and a single white waxy sac, from which one had issued, attached to the upper surface of a small, oval leaf, which at the time, from a supeficial examination, I took to be a mealy bug, Dactylopius longifilis Comstock; but recently on a more careful examination I find to be a species of that interseting genus Orthesia Bosc.

Mr. Scudder, in his “Butterflies,” p. 136, says of this species: It is the longest lived of our butterflies. It leaves its winter quarters later in the season than other hibernating butterflies, and continues upon the wing until July and August, laying eggs all the time, so that the insect may be found in all its earlier stages most of the summer.

Now that the observations of my yound friend, W. D. Marsh, on this species, have been given in the Can. Ent. (xx., p. 45), I think no reasonable person can dubt that it is at least three-brooded in New England, and that the late butterflies hibernate there. Very late in the fall of 1887, Mr. Marsh saw individuals flying, long after severe frosts had been felt, and still later, he had butterflies come from pupæ. These late fliers are the hibernators.

The species was described (1787) by Fabricius, from a specimen wanting prominent parts, antennæ and legs. The descriptions by Villers, Olivier, Gmelin, Latreile and Waler, are simply copies.

Borkhausen, in 1791, described the sa mespecies as M. ocellatum, from a specimen found in Darmstadt, Hesse. The descripiton and figure are good, and Burmeister believed the N. American species to be identical.

The following paper is devoted to the description of new genera and species of parasitic. Hymenoptera belonging to the family Proctotrupidæ, collected at Ottawa, Canada, by my esteemed friend, Mr. W. Hauge Harrington, to whose liberality I am deeply indebted for sending me these and many other interesting forms in this family now in my collection.

Cucullia Hartmanni, n sp.

Expanse 1.75 inches, length of body .75 inch. General color of fore wings pale gray, so suffused in places with dark gray as to give the wings a moderately dark gray cast, but not so dark as C. intermedia, Spey. Lines black, basal half line only indicated on the costa. T. a line double; the inner part almost imperceptible; strongly dentate, from its origin projecting obliquely outward to a strong tooth on the fold in the discal cell, with a short tooth on the fold between the costal and subcostal veins; from discal tooth it receds to median vein a little nearer the body than its inception on the costa; from this it extends out in another tooth nearly twice as far out as the discal tooth, the point resting on the submedian fold, almost reaching the infection of the t.p. line, the points of both lines nearly obsolete in a white patch at this place that fades out into the general color; about the middle of the space from teh median vein to submedian fold a brownish black spur is sent our parallel with the median vein, terminating above the middle of the white patch; the line reaches the posterior margin by another inflexoon on submedian vein, and another outward tooth below the vein.

Agrotis agilis, n. s.

Two males in good condition received from Mr. James Fletcher, from Vancouver, belong to a decidely different species from my semiclarata, Essay, Plate 1, Fig 9, though allied,as also to Californian gravis, and our Eastern venerabilis. Antennæ brush-like. Gray, with a brown tinge. Lines obliterate.

Eggs.—Diameter, .04 of an inch; low conoidal, the edges of the base rounded; striated, fifteen of the striæ reaching the micropyle, sixteen more that do not reach the apex, though but few of these are only half lenght; shallow transverse striæ. Color dull brownish olive. Duration of this period 201 days.

In studying the seasonal variation exhibited by various species of butterflies, I have been struck by the fact, that whereas in most instances the form emerging in the spring is darker and smaller than the summer brood, there are also exceptions to this rule, in which the vernal emergence is the lighter. Take, for instance, the genus Pieris. The vernal broods of P. napi and P. protodice are distinctly more dusky than those which have undergone their whole metamorphosis in a single season; but, on the other hand, the spring emergences of P. rapœ and P.brassicœ are wont to be pale, and the spring-emerging P. virginiensis is pale, and as Mr. W. H. Edwards remarks (“Papilio,” 1881, p. 97), more like the summer than the winter form of tis progenitor P. napi.

April 28, 1887, a single larva of then unknown Catocal was found on a Honey Locust which proved to be this species. By its appearance it had seemingly passed the first moult. Hence the egg and first stage of the larva is lacking in this account of its life history. If my conjecture be true, my description will begin with the conventional “after the first moult.” Length .26 inch. Color pale greenish, the anterior two and posterior three joints whitish; four purplish red stripes on each side, the lower somewhat broken; head mottled, but not heavily so; piliferous spots black, with short black hairs. Shape as usual with Catocala larvæ. Duration of this period unknown.

An interesting interference in the adoption of the generic name Rileya has recently taken place between Mr.Ashmead and myself, and as I am of the opinion that this name should apply to the genus of Encyrtinæ defined by myself, rather than to the genus of Eurytominæ defined by Mr. Ashmead, I state in this note the circumstances of the interference, and print in full the paper in which my description occurred.

The face above the epistom blackish brown, shining; mouth and a ring around the eyes yellowish; palpi yellowish; maxillary thin, apical joint cylindrical nothced on tip; labial of same length, apical joint fusiform, the conical tip notched.

Antennæ as long as head and thorax, thicker at tip, which is clavate, fuscous, annulated with yellow, except on club; basal joint yellow above, second black; antennæ below largely yellow.

My good friend Mr. Howard, in his article entitle “The Chalcid Genus Rileya,” published in the October Can. Ent., p. 191, makes several inaccurate statements; and, in the lines “An interesting interference in the adoption of the generic name Rileya has recently taken place between Mr. Ashmead and myself,” implies that I knowingly appropriated this name for a genus in the Eurytominœ, after he had decided to us it for one in the Encyrtinœ when I had no such knowledge, therby placing me in an unenviable position before my colleagues.

In my article with the above heading, to which my friend Mr. J. B. Smith takes exception, I at once confess that an error occurs, and that the title should have been new to “our lists” and not to “our fauna.” Mr. Smith wrote me a day or two after the publication of the paper, and I at once replied that I should have used the word “lists” in the place of “fauna.” I am therefore somewhat surprised that in his printed remarks he did not allude to the correction 'I had personally made, but that he should take me to task after receiving my letter, and charge me with adding the species mentioned to our “fauna,” when I had disclaimed the meaning he attributes to me.

A few years since I described a colony of Spanner caterpillars (Geometridœ) belonging to an undeterminded species, and the description appeared afterwards in this journal. These larvæ were remarkable for their mimicry, in color and shape and attitude, of dead leaves. There could be no question that they belonged to the category of protective appearance, to which so many green and brown tinted larvæ belong, which share these “cosmical color.s”

Saperda Fayi, Bland.—This beautiful Saperda breeds in the small limbs of Crataegus, especially crus-galli and tomentosa, as first observed by Mr. C. D. Zimmermann, Can. Ent., 10, 220; and should it, like some of its allies, acquire a taste for cultivated fruit trees, it would be a formidable enemy, as is evidenced by the way it depredates on thorn bushes. The beetles appear here the last week in May or the first week in June, according to the season, the males preceding the females three or four days.

Hitherto but a single genus(Conops) of this group has received general accepteance among dipterologists. A second genus, Physocephala, was based by Schiner on characters in themselves of but little importance, and which I did not deem sufficient to separate our species in the first paper I published* on the North American forms. A further study, however, convinced me that they were sufficiently constant to warrant their use, particularly in connection with other important ones in the neuration, which I pointed out.

In the August part of the Canadian Entomologist, pp. 149–154, I notice an article on this subject by my friend, Mr. Scudder, and I may, perhaps, be able to add some additional remarks.

The volume on Exotic Moths, published by Duncan in Jardine's “Naturalist's Library,” contains (pp. 66–71) a short account of Abbot's life and works, and incorporates the notice by Swainson, to which Mr. Scudder refers.

Eggs laid June 17th, scattered, hatched July 1st.

Egg.—Creamy white: one-twenty-fourth of an inch in diameter; shaped like a nutmeg-melon; marked longitudinally with zig-zag ridges; attached by short foot-stalk.

Newly Hatched Larva.—One-eighth of an inch long. Head large in proportion to body, honey-yellow, granulated. Body attenuated and ending in two pointed prolongations; pale amber, set with brown tubercles bearing light spines. Dorsal an side lines darker amber. Spiracles dark brwon. Head and fore legs bearing a few bristles. The insect feeds with its head downwards on the edge of the leaf. Its food plant is the sedge, Carex oligosperma.