Nearly all the Chalcidid parasites of Coccidæ belong to the subfamilies Aphelininæ and Encyrtinæ. So universal is this rule that it is remarkable to rear anything else from a Coccid (excluding, of course, hyperparasites). One or two Mymarids and the species of the curious subfamily Signiphorinæ live in the eggs of scale insects, and we are just beginning to realize that there is a peculiar group of genera allied to the old subfamily Pireninæ which also have this habit.

Male.—Expands 1.50 inches. Upper side: Superiors tawny with a fuscous border a little more than one-eighth inch in width; there are from one to four small subapical tawny spots in the fuscous border; at end of cell a dark spot which may or may not be connected with the stigma; stigma rather more than an eighth inch in length, very narrow and unbroken, and extending to inner margin. Inferiors have the same fuscous border and tawny central area. Under side: Superiors with tawny central area and border same as upper side; there is a large triangular spot extending into the wing from the base. The tawny colour above this spot is of a darker hue than that below and outside of it. Inferiors very light brown, generally with four or five very faint tawny spots in the central area.

We were fortunate in taking a very peculiar pair of Colias philodice this summer. They were captured at Edgartown, Mass., in a litrle salt marsh, August 10th and 14th respectively, and, though hatched during the hot wave, we believe are blood relations — part of a sport brood.

Many specimens were examined at the time, but no other departures from the type found.

Male.—Length, 10.5 mm. Black with yellowish markings. Head transverse, as wide as thorax, about twice as wide as long when viewed from above; face above the antennæ, and vertex, polished, impunctate, without apparent sutures and with sparse blackish pubescence; the cheeks and under surface with pubescence more dense; clypeus polished; palpi slender; antennæ as long as head and thorax, rather stout, eighteen-jointed, segments subequal; eyes small but prominent; ocelli small, in a triangle on a line with the posterior margins of the eyes. Thorax rugose with coarse, irregular punctures, those of the pleura and pectus smaller and more numerous; posterior angles of prothorax yellow; legs rather slender, coxa and femora black, remainder yellow, the tips of tibiæ and tarsi somewhat dusky; wings subhyaline, with dark stain covering marginal cell and extending slightly beyond each end of it, stigma and costal nervures black, remaining nervures reddish, second and third submarginal cells subequal; scutellunl abruptly rounded posteriorly, postscutellum yellow, prominent, subpyramidal, notched at apex, in suture on each side several deep shining foveæ; metathorax very short and rounded at sides, without prominent angles, a small yellow spot on each side. Abdomen polished, impunctate, apparently with six segments; second segment as long as all the following and with a yellow central band, or elongated spot on each side; a yellowish spot at lateral base of segments 3 and 4, very faint on the latter; venter slightly pubescent, with double row of yellow spots on segments 1 to 5, largest on 2nd.

In 1889 I received from the late William Brown, of Charlottetown, P. E. I., some larvæ of a small case-bearer, which he had found in large numbers upon his plum trees, and which also occurred in his pear and apple orchards. Since that time this insect has made itself well-known by its injuries in apple orchards in various localities in the Maritime Provinces, and in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. A beautifully illustrated and carefully prepared bulletin has been issued by Mr. M. V. Slingerland, of Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, in which the life history of this most interesting but very serious enemy of the fruit grower is fully described. The above illustration, kindly lent by the editor of the Canadian Horticulturist, is copied from that bulletin.

The object of this paper is chiefly to record some observations, made last summer, on a few parasitic forms, but mention is first made of two phytophagous species.

In the “Report of the Entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture for the year 1880,” Professor Comstock described (p. 304) an extremely injurious insect of the family Coccidæ, to which he gave the name Aspidiotus Perniciosus, or “the pernicious scale,” and he stated that this insect attacked a very large number of deciduous fruittrees in California, “excepting peach, apricot, and black tartarean cherry.” Later, this pest was observed, described and discussed by many persons interested in horticulture, and in America it is generally known by the trivial name of “the San José scale,” and is looked on as a most troublesome thing.

Two flies have emerged from cocoons which had passed two winters. Last summer I noticed an example of mistaken instinct. The eggs of this species are laid under the lower epidermis by saw-cuts in the edge of the leaf. Several eggs so laid were found on Ilex verticillata. In due time the larvæ hatched, but refused their food, and would undoubtedly have perished had I not recognized them and supplied them with willow, which they attacked voraciously.

The genus Isotoma, as far as known, is confined to the Northern Hemisphere and to the more northern part of this region. Thirty-one species are recorded from Europe and Asia, while the same number is recorded in the present paper, from the Eastern United States.

In the Journal of the New York Entomological Society, Vol. III., pp. 130–131, Mr. Harrison G. Dyar writes as follows: “Prof. E. B. Poulton has shown that dorsal eversible glands are of general occurrence throughout the Lymantriidæ (Trans. Ent. Soc., Lond., 1887, p. 300) on the tenth and eleventh joints (segments), or rarely only on the eleventh joint (Dasychira pudibunda). Probably these structures are characteristic of the family, but Prof. Poulton did not find them in Demas. This genus has been considered to belong to the Noctuidæ, but English authors assume it to be a Lymantriid.

In former years I had found this beetle, the largest and most conspicuous weevil of our fauna, to occur only upon beeches, as noted in my sketch of the Rhyncophora, in Eleventh Annual Report. Such, also, was Mr. Chittenden's record [Ent Am., Vol. VI., 168]. Its infestation of the twigs of oak had been recorded by Riley, who described the larva. Its occurrence upon hickory is noted by Mr. Beutenmuller [Can. Ent., XXII., 201], and it is known as injurious to apple and other fruit trees. On June 9th. 1895, I observed a pair in coitu upon the trunk of a hickory (Carya amara), where there were no beech trees near by, and on carefully examining other hickories in the immediate vicinity I found five more pairs.

In 1895, according to Mr. A. R. Grote, “the European type of Agronama seems certainly to be vestigiatis.” This species was declared to be congeneric with the American species classed by me as Feltia, and the latter genus was dropped in favor of Agronoma, and Mr. Slingerland was scolded because he had adopted the generic name used by me. In the January (1896) number of the Can. Ent. I pointed out for Mr. Grote's benefit, and also for the information of American students, that there existed certain points of structural difference which had escaped Mr. Grote's examination, which made the declared type of Agronoma a member of the genus Agrotis as restricted by me, the latter genus being based upon the very species which Mr. Grote said was its type. As the result of this paper, it has become much less “certain” to Mr. Grote's mind that vestigialis is, after all, the type of Agronoma, and on reconsidering the matter, it seems to him that crassa had better be considered the type.

In 1889, Westwood, in the Synopsis of the then known Mantidæ, prefixed to his Revisio insectorum familiæ Mantidorum, credits to North America, north of Mexico, nine species belonging to five genera,— Gonatista, Oligonyx, Thesprotia, Mantis, and Stagmomantis. several species were overlooked by him, and in reality up to the present time twenty-three nominal species have been at different times credited to this region and referred to ten genera,—Ameles, Empusa, Phasmomantis, Stagmatoptera, and Theoclytes, besides the foregoing. Several of the species, however, have been erroneously credited to this country, such as Empusa gongylodes and Mantis gemmata, both of which are East Indian. Several of the names, moreover, are synonyms of others, so that the number of species these references represent is speedily reduced more than one-half. All of these but Mantis Wheeleri Thom., Phasmomantis sumichrasti Sauss., and Oligonyx Uhleri Stal, I have seen, and to them can add several more not before recognized in the region in question, six of them being apparently hitherto undescribed, together with one genus. The total number of species is fifteen or sixteen, and of genera, eleven, only three of the genera—Litaneutria, Stagmomantis, and Oligonyx—having more than one species; undoubtedly more forms will be found in the West and South.

I have read with interest the paper by Mr. Slingerland, Can. Ent., XXVII., p.p. 301–308, and as my name is occasionally mentioned, I trust to the courtesy of our Editor to allow me to reply.