XII. The Hydrophildæ of Ontario and Qubec (concluded).

This paper can scarcely be considered in any sense an original one since it consists almost entirely of tables published in greater detail by Dr. Horn in his reviews of this portion of the Hydrophilidæ. By removing the extra-limital forms, I have been able in some cases to modify the synopses so as to make them a little easier to follow, and it is hoped that they will prove of use to many students of the Canadian fauna who may not see the more complete originars. with this prelude, which will place the credit where it properly belongs, we may proceed.

The new species described below were contained in a collection of saw-flies recently from Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, and were collected on Mount Washington and at Franconia, New Hampshire. The collection was of interest on account of the number of species it contained which are evidently related to a boreal fauna.

Macrophya mixta,n. sp.—♀ Black, with the following parts white: two spots on the clypeus, the labrum, a spot on each mandible, two spots on the occiput pseudocaudad of the ocelli, a narrow line on collar and tegulæ, the anterior coxæ at apex and a narrow line at side, the middle and posterior coxæ at apex, the trochanters, the distal halves of the anterior femora, the anterior tibiæ beneath, the knees of the middle, all the tarsi except the base of the first segment and the apices of the others, a large spot on the posterior coxæ.

Mr. Schaus, in describing some new species of South American moths (Proc. Zool. Soc., Lond., 1894, p. 233), casualty refers the genus Apatelodes to the Eupterotidæ. As this genus has been placed among the Notodontidæ by American authors, it may be worth while to examine the arguments for this position.

The Eupterotidæ of Hampson are a series of mostly large moths from India, with geometriform markings, of a peculiar and rather characteristic appearance. The body is proportionately rather small and slender, and the fringes of the wings are long. Their hairy vestiture, broad wings and short cell suggest the Lasiocampidæ, where they are placed by Kirby. They are, however, frenate, and with the venation essentially of Notodontidæ, but without the accessory cell. Two genera, at least, are included (Gangarides and Cnethocampa), which differ considerably in habitus. In these, the body is stouter proportionately, the wings are narrower and the cell longer, while the general appearance suggests the Notodontidæ rather than the other Eupterotidæ. Mr. Hampson separates these families by the absence of the tongue in the Eupterotidæ; but, as this member seems to be equally lacking in the notodontian Melelopha (Ichthyura), the separation seems hardly very sharp.

(1.) Smicra divisa, Walker.—On July 8th, 1892, Prof. C. H. T. Townsend collected some speceiments of a Simcra in the Grand Canon, Arizona; and on July 27th he obtained what is doubtless at ♂ of the same species, at the Zuni River, Arizona. These had remained in our collection unnamed, until Miss MacGilmore, a student in zoology, worked them over, and concluded they were probably Walker's divisa. I hardly agreed with this, rather thinking the insect was new, but Mr. Ashmead has now seen a specimen, and declares it is really divisa.

Mandibles short, not reaching ends of anterior coxæ spines in pronotal comb, 14 to 26.

Mandibles long, reaching to or beyond ends of anterior coxæ spines in pronotal comb, 16 to 20.

Spines in pronotal comb, 14 to 20. …A.

Spines in pronotal comb, 24 to 26 ; hind femora with a row of minute bristles on side; first two or three abdominal segments with minute teeth on disc above; first claspers of male without short black teeth; bristles on second antennal joint shorter than third joint; length, 3–3.5 mm.; colour dark brown … avium.

Genus Hystrichopsylla, Tschb.

1880. Taschenberg, Die Flohe, p. 83.

This genus has but a single species:—

Hystrichopsylla obtusiceps, Ritsema

1826. Curtis Brit. Ent., III., No. 114 (Pulex taipæ).

1831. Macquart, Ann. d. Sci. Nat., XXII., p. 405 (Pulex terrestris).

1868. Ritsema, Tijds. voor Entom., 2 ser. III., p. 173 (Pulex obtusiceps).

1880. Taschenberg, Die Flohe, p. 83 (Hytrichopsylla obtusiceps).

This remarkable flea has a heavier covering of spines and bristles than occurs in any other species. The head combs are on the discs of the cheeks with the spines pointing backward (as in Typhlopsylla gracilis and fraterna), instead of on the lower edges, there being 10 spines on either side. The first joint of the maxillary palpi is the longest. Pronotal comb with 20 spines on either side. The comb on the first abdominal segment consists of 20 spines on either side; that on the second segment, of 12 on either side, and that on the third segment, of 7 on either side. The tarsi are slender. Colour, chestnut-brown. Length of male, 3.5mm., of female, 5–5.5mm. It has been reported as occuring on Talpa europœa and Arvicola arvalis, in various parts of Europe.

2931. Ptenidium pullum, Makl.—Not rare. In grass tufts in winter.

2951. Trichopteryx xanthocera, Matth.—Rare. Under log in Feburary.

2952. Trichopteryx parallelopipeda, Matth.—Rare. In grass tufts in February.

2953. Trichopteryx diffinis, Matth.—Common in November in seed pods of fox glove.

A paper giving biologic notes on some New Mexico Coleoptera was published in “Insect Life,”, Vol. V., p.37–40; and a paper treating of the blister-beetles or meloids of New Mexico and Arizona, in “Psyche,” 1894, p. 100–102. The species mentioned in the latter not at all. These three papers, therefore, will serve as a catalogue, or list with notes, of all the Coleoptera observed by the writer in New Mexico and Arizona except a few, the names of which it has been impossible to get from those to whom they were sent for determination.

I think that I am the first man who has witnessed the hatching of the eggs of Pamphila Manitoba. I take pleasure in the belief; and I am glad to add another chapter to the history of our North American Rhopalocera.

Pamphila Manitoba is a sub-Arctic species. The first specimens taken in the neighbourhood of Quebec were captured by Mr. Hanham and myself in September, 1892 (See 23rd Rep. Ent. Soc., Ont., p. 31). The species had, in previous years, been taken at Riviére-du-Loup en bas, Cacouna, Metis, and Gaspé (See Mr. H. H. Lyman's article, 22nd Rep. Ent. Soc. of Ont., p. 27). In 1893, it appeared at Quebec on the 5th of August, and this year a specimen left the chrysalis, in my house, on the 21st of July. It would seem as if change of climate and locality were bringing forward the insect's time of appearance.

The Ichneumonidæ have habits and peculiarities as distinctly their own as other families and orders of insects. In collecting them one will find, after a little experience, that certain species or even groups will frequent certain places where conditions are favourable and their host is likely to be found.

Mr. Hulst has been at the pains of taking a sentence of mine as the text of a discourse as to the value of genitalic characters in classification, in the January number of the Canadian Entomologist. Whether this sentence will really bear the edifice Mr. Hulst has erected upon it, is a matter which hardly concerns me. Before either Mr. Smith or Mr. Hulst wrote, I had pointed out the value of the genitalia in generic groupings, in this following Lederer, as an accessory character. My opinion had been (but this is only an opinion) that morphologically the characters drawn from the male anal appendages were of similiar value to those drawn from the antennæ

The following notes and observations were made during a twoweeks' stay in this county, ending on August 29th. The greater portion of our collecting was done in the neighbourhood of King & Bartlett Lake, and along the road leading out to Eustis. This section of Maine, if not the entire State, is anything but an “entomologist's paradise.” The country is mountainous and covered for the most part with a dense growth of spruce, pine, birch, etc. Very little land in the entire county is under cultivation, so that those insects which we naturally look for in such places are almost entirely wanting. Many beautiful lakes are to be found in this part of Maine, but here again the entomologist is doomed to disappointment, as the water of the lakes is of an icy coldness, and very few aquatic insects are seen. The nights are invariably cold and but few insects are attracted to light. In a heavilytimbered country, such as we find in Somerset Co., Maine, it would naturally be supposed that the fallen trees would yield au abundance of insect life, particularly Coleoptera.

On the 20th of June, 1895, Mr. Balkwill brought to me some Tortricid moths which he found at rest upon honeysuckle in his garden. They were new to me. He asked if I wanted any more? I said I would take all he liked to bring of that kind; so by the 27th I had got about three dozen of them. Being desirous of learning something about them, I applied to Prof. C. H. Fernald for information, and sent some of the moths. He replied: “They are Oenectra flavibasana; Fern. That he had two specimens in his collection; the types: one from Texas and one from Illinois. That nothing is known of their early stages or food plants, and would be glad to have published all that was known on these points.” Up to the present time I can give nothing with certainty upon these points. Presumably, the larvæ had fed upon the honeysuckle, as chrysalids were found in the connate leaves with a thin silken web spun over them, one of which I raised to the moth. There is plenty of evidence of feeding having been done upon the plant, but nothing positive as to what did it. A lookout is being kept upon the plants for the next brood.

Recently. I was informed by a friend that he had a Carama from Washington, D. C. I naturally expected to see C. cretata, Grt.; but the specimen now before me proves to be Carama pura, Butl. This raises the question of the validity of the specific characters used in the genus. Caramas are rare in the United States, and it seems scarcely probable that we have more than one species. Mr. Baker, in his review of Carama, does not refer to cretata, Grt., though it is the fourth name in point of priority. It is evident from his synopsis, however, that cretata differs from ovina, Sepp., only in having the yellow colour confined to the vertex of the head, and from discrepans, Wall., in its smaller size and white front.

The following list embraces all described species of the order Siphonaptera. For descriptions of all species known at the present time, see the preceding papers of this series, where will also be found a partial bibliography. For the complete bibliography and synonymy of all species published up to 1880, see Taschenberg's Die Flohe.

The mounting of insects (which are naturally semi-transparent) without pressure has always appeared to me to be a far more satisfactory method than the process so generally in use, viz., the soaking the specimen in liquor potassæ until clear, and then pressing it flat between two glass slips. The liquid partially, or wholly, destroys the internal organs, and the flattening process completes what the liquid failed to accomplish; that is, in so distorting the insect that the flattened skin on the slip but very remotely resembles the natural insect.

♀ scale rather like Lecanium hesperidum, elongate-oval, flattish, plae olive-brown, 2½ mm. long. Ovisac white, firm, elongate, parallelsided, distinctly longitudinally grooved, 8 mm. long, 2 broad. Derm colourless, not tessellate. Margin with a double row of easily-deciduous, strong, usually large, blunt spines, which are, near the lateral and posterior clefts, more or less branched at their tips. Spines of lateral clefts in threes, one very long and large, two very short and small. Anal plates brown, longer than broad, their outer sides meeting at about a right angle.