This North American genus was erected in 1864 by Loew who based his description on specimens collected in New Hampshire. The species of this genus are readily separated from those of any other chironomid genus by the presence of a median longitudinal fissure on the mesonotum. The nonplumose male antennae are also quite characteristic of this group, although this condition obtains also in the genus Hydrobaenus Fries. At present five species are known, to which are now added three new species.

In collections of American beetles, we find, at present, only one recognized species of Xylita, namely laevigata, which occurs both in Europe and America. Mr. H. C. Fall recently called to my attention the fact that the specimens so named were not all alike. Upon examination it is found that in many cases two species have been grouped under this head, the true Xylita laevigata Hellenius and another which apparently is identical with the European Xylita livida Sahlbg. An examination and comparison of our form with specimens from abroad show no differences. A series of thirty-four beetles received from Mr. Ralph Hopping all proved to be Xylita livida.

It has long been known that the species figured by A. Gibson under the name incorrupta Hy. Edw. in his excellent paper on Canadian Apantesis species (1903, Can. Ent. XXXV, p. 145, Pl.) is not the true incorrupta, which is a synonym of geneura Stkr. (1916, B. & McD. Contrib. III (3), 158). As there is apparently no name available for our Canadian prairie species I propose the above one in honor of one of the pioneer workers in this group in Canada.

About a year ago Mr. F. M. Brown called the writer's attention to the aberrant venation of one secondary of a specimen of Erebia magdalena Strecker. The aberration, of the type shown in Figure I, consists in the presence of an extra cross-vein connecting veins Rs and M1 a few millimeters beyond the end of the cell. Later, in studying series of other species of the genus, a similar variation from the normal (Figure 2) turned up in several specimens. The facts are presented in the following table, in which the results of examination of some material from the genus Oeneis is also included.

Species of horse flies resembling Tabanus affinis Kby. and its allies with hairy eyes and red sides are among the abundant but taxonomically troublesome, North American Tabanidae, especially in the boreal regions. McDunnough (1921) did much to clarify the status of females of the most prevalent species, but omitted discussion of the scarcer males. Information on a few additional species and the availability of males of all species treated by him, make further discussion propitious at this time.

The speciles of the laudabilis group, formerly included in the Hadenine genus Polia but now placed in the recently erected genus Lacinipolia McD., have always proved more or less of a stumbling block to taxonomists. Variation in the individual species, combined at times with a certain amount of sex-dimorphism, has been partially responsible for the confusion, which of late years has been increased by the addition of certain of Strand's names, based on Hampson's so-called “aberrations,” and other names proposed in a varietal sense by Draudt for Mexican forms in the American Noctuid portion of Seitz' Macrolepidoptera of the World.

The following descriptions and notes apply to those North American Leiodidae in which the mesosternum is vertical between the middle coxae and in which the anterior and middle tarsi are five-segmented and the posterior tarsi four-segmented in both sexes.

It has long been known that some of the Phasmidae discharge a fetid fluid from certain glands. King (1867) published a note on his observations of a phasmid in Jamaica, identified as Anisomorpha buprestoides (Stoll) but which Bates believed to be a true Phasma, in which he stated that the prothorax contains two glands, secreting a fetid fluid which is discharged through two elevated pores and serves as a defensive agent. This author further stated that these nocturnal, or crepuscular, and gregarious insects are almost always found in the adult stage in copulation.

A careful study of the genotypes of a number of the Noctuid genera, at present employed for North American species, with particular reference to the male genitalia, has revealed the fact that in frequent instances the generic names have been misapplied. With a view to correcting certain of these errors (as listed in our 1917 Check List, following Hampson) the following notes are offered.

The results of a three year study of the imported parasites of Diprion polytomum show that an eulophid parasite, Microplectron fuscipennis Zett., gives promise of becoming an important control factor of the spruce sawfly in Canada. M. fuscipennis is widely distributed in Europe, and its habits there have been fully discussed by Morris and Cameron (1935) and by Ullyett (1936).

In 1935 some notes were published on the heredity of striping in 1st instar larvae of Tropaea luna. The majority of the material obtained up to 1936 gave a 1-1 ratio of striped and unstriped larvae when the character appeared. The exception was a whole brood of striped larvae.

♂ ♀.—Thrassis desertorum belongs to that section of the genus which is characterized by having metatarsal segment I equaling or slightly exceeding II. In this species metatarsal segment I equals II and III together. The labial palpi exceed the fore-trochantera. The lower genal row consists of 3 bristles ; the upper bristle is located higher than the eye; the middle, and smallest, one is inserted closer to the upper than to the lower genal bristle.

Female. Length about 7 mm., anterior wing 6.5 ; robust, without much hair, the abdomen bare and shining, without hair bands, but the mesopleura with rather abundant greyish-white hair; head and thorax dark green, the thorax posteriorly and at its sides almost black; mandibles black, faintly reddish apically; margin of clypeus black; face shining green; mesothorax dark, more bluish green, dull in front, shining posteriorly; scutellum steel-blue, postscutellum black, but metathorax, seen from above, olive green; legs and abdomen black; antennae black; tegulae dark brown, with minute punctures, only seen under microscope; clypeus flattened in middle, with several longitudinal grooves; front dull; vertex shining blue; mesothorax without distinct sculpture as seen under a lens, but with minute rather sparse punctures on a minutely lineolate surface; scutellum strongly bigibbous, the elevations shining; area of metathorax large, dull, with a shining margin, plications strong on basal half; posterior truncation sharply bounded; wings conspicuously reddish, stigma and nervures dull red ; second cubital cell large, receiving recurrent nervure near end; hair on inner side of hind tarsi pale reddish; hind spur with four very long oblique spines, and a fifth rudimentary one; abdomen without evident punctures, as seen under lens, the microscope shows excessively minute scattered ones.