Aleurodes mori, n. sp.

Egg.—Length, .16 mm.; width, 08 mm.; elliptical, curved, light brownish in colour, marked with minute polygonal areas; pedicel short, about one-tenth length of egg.

Larva.—Length, .43 mm.; width, .3 mm., varying somewhat; shape, elliptical; colour, whitish or yellowish white. Margin all around dentate, due to the usually short but acute incisions between the closely-set wax tubes. A very fragmentary marginal fringe frequently present; no submarginal rim as in pupacase.

Since the season of 1894 (when I first discovered that the upper and lower membranes of a butterfly's wing could be separated), I have had a desire to test the accuracy of the conclusions reached by me at that time; so with the remarkable profusion of Anosia (Danais) Archippus, Fab., in the season of 1899, I was able to secure such an abundance of material to work with that I could repeat the observations until every doubt was satisfactority settled. I shall only give here a brief statement of results reached, as a full account of the various processes will be published in the forthcoming Annual Report of the Society for 1899.

This genus of dragon flies is one of the groups whose members are accounted rare in collections, though quite abundant in nature. With the exception of three species, two of which have only been obtained in numbers by breeding, few imagoes have been taken. Although I have collected carefully for several years in localities where a few species were common enough, I have seen but three imagoes at large, but I have bred one species by hundreds, and have seen the exuviæ upon the banks of streams by tens of thousands.

Nymphs of this genus seem to prefer the sandy or gravelly beds of clear, rapid streams, flowing through rocky woods. What becomes of the countless imagoes which issue from such places by night in early summer I have not as yet been able to find out.

On the 29th of June, 1897, I found, in the Gomin Swamp, two Spilosomas, females, lying side by side. One of them was much spotted, and presented the exact appearance of the insect which is figured, with closed wings, in the original edition of Dru Drury's work, and named by him Bombyx cunea. The other was white, but on the median nerve, at the angle of the second fork, there was a small black dot, hardly perceptible. The thorax was clothed with light down; the abdomen was white and spotless. The eyes were black, as were also the under sides of the antennae and feet. The front of the thorax under the head was luteours.

This second moth laid eggs on the 10th of July, and the eggs produced larvae which, in due time, pupated. The moths appeared in the following spring.

This family is of small extent, and the members are as a rule easily recognized by their peculiar habits. In the genera Lucanus, Dorcus, Platycerus and Ceruchus the males are marked by a greater development of the mandibles, associated in turn with a greater or less broadening of the head. The antennæ differ from those of the Scarabæidæ (to which family the Lucanidæ are closely allied) in not having the plates of the club completely opposable. In other words the club is pectinate rather than lamellate. These organs offer a good character for the division of the family into two divisions—the first containing those genera in which the antennæ are geniculate (i. e., crooked like a bent knee, the second and following joints forming an angle with the first, as shown in the figure of Lucanus dama, fig. 12), while the second is composed of those in which they are straight. The male antennæ frequently differ from those of the female, but it is not necessary to enter into details for the purpose of this paper.

This list was commenced on page 291 of Vol. XXIX of this magazine. Since then another season has come and gone, and Mr. Heath, of Cartwright, has kindly submitted all his moths to me for names. Some good collecting has also been done by Mr. Marmont, at Rounthwaite. The result is, as will be seen by a perusal of the subjoined list, a very respectable addition to the Sphingidae and Bombycidae of this Province.

Collections made by Mr. Criddle, at Douglas, and Mr. Hutchinson, at Kinosota, have not been seen yet; they no doubt will yield some new or rare species, especially as both localities should be good ones. At Douglas there is a very large spruce and tamarac swamp, and Kinosota is close to Lake Manitoba, and has besides extensive forest lands in the district.

The Noctuids of this Province, as already known, make a very fair list, and include a number of rare moths, as well as a good percentage of new species. I have seen all Mr. E. F. Heath's things, and his additions to my list are quite numerous; these appear as taken at Carwright. The Rounthwaite records are Mr. L. E. Marmont's (I have seen his collection), and he has added some rare species. The Brandon records are in some cases my own, as I have visited there the last three summers; other are Mr. H. W. O. Boger's, of that place. I have seen paintings of a number of moths collected at the Douglas swamp by Mr. Criddle, of St. Alban's, Aweme, and these have given me a few extra names.

My best collecting here has been done at light, at Brandon on bloom on the prairies, and I have also had very fair success, both here and at Brandon, from sugaring late in the season (from the middle of August until early in October).

Unquestionably, this group is closely related to the Crabronidae, where most authorities have placed it; but, to me, the quiet different shaped head, the absence of the basal abscissa of the cubitus in the front wings, and the remarkable formation of the scutellum and postscutellum, characters not found in any other group, seem to justify one in separating it from the Crabronidae and treating it as a distinct family.

The group was first recognized as a subfamily in 1874, by c. G. Thomson, in his Skandinaviens Hymenoptera, Vol. III., p. 256.

With the constantly increasing activity in applied entomology in America, the necessity for rooms or apartments especially adapted for the study of the development of insects is becoming each year more imperative. The insectary has, in fact, become almost as necessary to the working entomologist as has the laboratory to the chemist. While it is especially true in entomological investigations that one must “study nature where nature is,” it is equally true that on cannot, in all cases, watch with the necessary care and constant application in the fields that he will be able to do in a faily well equipped insectary. Not only can forms be transported thousands of miles while in an inactive state and their development watched at close range, as it were, but eggs and larvae may be brought in during late autumn or winter and studied through their various stages, frequently long before they have appeared outside; and in cases of uncommon or unfamiliar forms this will give the investigator a vast amount of information that he can use to great advantage when the species appears in the fields under a natural condition, perhaps months later.

The paper in the May number of The Canadian Entomologist on the above subject is very interesting, but does not, in my opinion, entirely conclude the subject. Dr. Fyles proves definitely a considerable range of variability in what he calls congrua, and what is without any doubt antigone, Strecker. It seems to be certain that there are two species having a very similar range of variation—the insect that we call the fall webworm in the larval stage, and the insect bred by Dr. Fyles. Of the variability of cunea there is no doubt. I had not been aware, heretofore, that antigone had anything like the same range.

In the matter of determining what species Walker had before him a number of factors must be considered, as we have not available for ready examination the actual specimens described. In the first place there but three examples, apparently similar, for no variations are mentioned; but all from Georgia, and there is a very considerable range of variation in size; that is, from 16 to 20 lines, or one-third of an inch in a small species.

The sessile abdomen, always without a constriction between the first and second segments, but above all the very large, free, triangularly elongated labrum, which is always much longer than wide at base, the sinuate or ≀-shaped transverse median nervure in the hind wings, and the aborted ocelli, at once distinguished the family.

Most authorities have confused, or at least included this family with the family Stizidæ, which also has a more or less prominent labrum; but in the Stizidæ the ocelli are always distinct, normal, the labrum is most frequently semicircular, always wider than long, while the middle tibiæ have two distinct apical spurs, characters of great taxonomic value, readily recognizable, and which at once separate them from the Bembicidæ.

During the last winter, in connection with the study of the local bees, I had occasion to write out my views in regard to their classification, basing my observation upon the recent Apidae catalogue of Della Torre. As the views then arrived at form a fair statement of my present opinions, I venture to offer them in connection with the recent paper of Mr. Ashmead on the classification of the bees.

Lederer characterizes Asteroscopus essentially as follows: Narrow-winged owlets, resembling Bombycids in the shaggy, loose vestiture. Palpi short, not exceeding the front, drooping. Tongue short and weak. Eyes naked, with bristly lashes. Antennæ comparatively long, with a tuft of hair at the base; in the male with short pectinations to the tip; in the female with sharp, ciliated angles to each joint. Thorax broad, convex, clothed with long, woolly hair. Abdomen shaggy, untufted. Body beneath and legs with dense woolly vestiture. Legs short, anterior tibia with a long claw at the tip.

The following descriptions of species which appear to be additions to our fauna were prepared more than a year ago, but were withheld in the hope that more material might be obtained last season. That hope was, however, not fulfilled; largely, perhaps, be it confessed, through lack of sufficient perseverance on the part of the writer in collecting:

1. Lygocerus pallipes, n. sp.

♀.—Length 1.5—2 mm. Black, finely punctulate and sparsely pubescent. Mandibles and palpi yellowish; antennae balck, except the scape at base and beneath; scape stout, first joint of flagellum about half as long as scape, second as long as pedicel, remaining joints subequal. Legs, including coxae, yellow. Wings subhyaline, stigma large, yellow. Abdomen stout, pointed at tip.

Among the material sent me for determination by Mr. A. W. Hanham were several species that appear to be undescribed. Some of these have been already published, and others are in the hands of publishers. The following two species are presented at this time because they are referred to in Mr. Hanham's list now published in the CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST.