It is well known to the popular as well as scientific world that the Aphides secrete or rather excrete a peculiarly viscid and honey-like fluid which forms one of the chief delicacies of Ants. That it was originally designed to form an article of food for the latter is a supposition that cannot be entertained for a single moment ; bnt that it is in some way connected with the preservation of the soft and tender beings by which it is manufactured, there can be no reasonable doubt.

Both of these species occur abundantly in this locality; but the latter (my specimens can be nothing else) has the apical vein furcate before the apex, whilst Dr. Clemens says that it is simple. Mr. Stainton says it may be B. basilaris, Zeller.

The two-winged flies are more important in nature than any other order of insects because of their number and diffusion, and the families may be briefly traced in succession previous to a more extended notice of each of them, in case the subject should become rnore interesting.

In the following arrangement the first manifestation of Dipterous. existence is associated with the inmost recesses of man's habitation. and a few beasts and birds aiso partake of its presence in their dwellings.

♂ .Antennæ pectinate. All the tibiæ armed or spinose. Abdomen a little flattened. Body slender ; wings ample and wide. Nearest to Agrotis collaris, but with wider wings, and rarger and differently colored. Smooth, Pale brown. Transverse lines even, with coincident pale shades. Basal half-line evident ; on the sub-basal space a pale dot followed by darker scales situate on median nervure.

“There are no satisfactory distinctions between some of the moths which enable any one to say that they are of such and such species, and very frequently they are separated into different kinds because they happen to feed on various plants, and because the moths are not all colored in the same manner. Of course the Entomologists that believe in the real nature of species have taken a vast deal of trouble with the Noctuina, but those who do not think a species to be anything more than an abstract idea, and that it really consists of the sum of the variations of a closely allied series of forms, do not see the use of this Natural History hair splitting.”