A protracted absence from home has prevented me from offering earlier to readers of The Canadian Entomologist an explanation of the circumstances which have led to my resignation of the post I have held so long as Editor of this journal. For thirteen years it has been my pleasure and privilege to be thus brought in contact with most of the active workers in the Entomological field, with many of whom I have held pleasant intercourse both by correspondence and in person, and it occasioned me much regret when I found it necessary to sever my connection with those editorial duties which had hitherto given me so much pleasure.

On the evening of Saturday, May 22nd, 1886, being the first warm evening after the electric light system was started in London, hundreds of “electric light bugs” (Camptobrochis grandis) and large green Calosomas (Calasoma scrutator) came into the city, and form that time on throughout the summer, and even as late as Nov. 2nd, the lights continued to attract hundreds of insects every warm evening.

The need of a better knowledge of the acutal structure of butterflies among those in this country who follow their study, is shown by the persistence with which an antiquated classification is adhered, to,— a classification whose only value is historical, which coceals affinities and takes no account of the progress of investigation. In the hope of stimulating the examination of objects and not of books, the following Table for the determination of the four families of butterflies, originally prepared for my forthcoming work on the New England species, is here published.

At the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of Ontario in October, 1885, I read a brief note on Oryssus Sayi, which was afterwards publihsed in the Canadian Entomologist (vol. xviii, page 30). It recorded the capture of two ♀ and one ♂ on cedar telegraph poles, and suggested that they might have emerged therefrom. During the arly summer of 1886, I added several specimens of Oryssus to my collection, and what is of much more importance, succeeded in gaining a more definite knowledge of the habits of our species. As no account, other than the brief note just cited, has ever appeared in the Entomologist of these handsome and interesting insects, I propose to give a brief paper upon them.

A few years ago a visit was made to the Glen, in the White Mts. of New Hamphire, in the early spring, just as the first tender leafage was appearing (June 2–5), and a report of the thirteen butterflies then found was publishe in Psyche, 1874. vol, 1, p. 13–14, 18–19. Wishing to secure eggs from some of the wintering butterflies abundant in that place, which I then failed to secure from being too early, another visit was made last spring to the same place, and at the same date (June 3–7), as the season was evidently sufficiently advanced to make it practically at least a week later; and so it proved, the vegetation at the Half-way House, at the upper limit of forest growth on the Mt. Washington carriage road, being this spring exactly at the stage at which I found it in the valleys at the previous visit, the difference in elevation being over fifteen hundred feet. The sky was equally sunny in both cases.

Some two years ago I received from Rev. L. C. Biggs, H.B.M. Chaplain at Penang, a parcel of insects collected by Mr. F. G. Durnford in Sungei-Ujong. Among them was a speciment the envelope containing which was labelled Charaxes Durnfordi, n. sp. Mr.Biggs, in sending the lot, called attention to this particular specimen in his note, saying: “It looks as if it were covered with mildew, which Durnford assures me is really fluff detached at the time of its capture.” I did not examine the specimen ver particularly at the time of its receipt, except to note that it was covered with a whitish mealy deposit, particularly thick upon the abdomen, and that it was not a Charaxes.

Egg.—Conical, truncated, the top nearly flat, slightly depressed, covered with a fine network of irregular six-sided meshes; these form fourrings about the central rosette, in middle of which in the microplye; the lower part and base rounded and thickly covered with shallow indentations; the sides ribbed, the number of ribs about 34, vertical, slightly sinuous, more so at lower end, narrow with rounded spaes between, which are crossed by many fine lines; color yellow-green. Duration of this stage about 12 days. The egg is like that of Galactinus, but has fewer ribs.

The account of this insect given by the early fathers of Œconomic Entomology is so charming that it seems almost profane to disturb a history accepted by most of their credulous offspring with unquestioning faith. Its wonderful habits and spura-rational instincts have been stock in trade ever since, and, like the fiction of the fly walking on glass by a sucker arrangement of its feet, is likely to hold its place in paste and scissor literature for all time to come.

I have read, as all of us have, the review of a book by C.J. Maynard, on our Butterflies, by Mr. W. H. Edwards, and which appeared in the February number of the Canadian Entomologist. Whatever Mr. Edwards writes in trenchant and to the point, so that we have received the impression that Mr. Maynard's book is really not what it ought to be, is not up to current scientific knowledge, and is inferior in its illustrations. There is no more to be said about the book on this head; its publication will probably do very little real good, except perhaps that here and there a reader into whose hands it may chance to fall may have his interest excited in the subject, and so be led to buy a better one, as, for instance, that of Prof. French, to say nothing of Mr. Edward's splendis volumes.

The North American species of the genus Callimorpha are exceedingly interesting both from their beauty and from the extreme variations to which some of the species are subject, and which has given rise not only tot he creation of numerous synonyms, but also to distinct species being regarded as merely varieties of other forms.

Tachina (Exorista) futilis Say., MSS. ♂, ♀. Palpi, antennæ and legs black; face, front and lst abdominal segment with a brassy-yellow reflection. Length, 7–10 mm.

Bottom of the antennal foveæ silvery gray; the lowr part of the cheeks likewise; front, lateral parts of the face and the orbit of the eyes below and behind (genal and occiptial orbit) brassy-yellowish, the coloring of the front being of a more saturate yellow than the lateral parts of the face; above the antennæ, in the middle of the front, a brown stripe, attenuated posteriorly; it bifurcates on the vertex, enclosing the grayish ocellar triangle; the hind plane of the head (occiput) gray. The row of frontal bristles consists; 1st, of three bristles pointing backwards, the uppermost of which is placed on the top of the vertex; 2nd, of three shorter bristles pointing forward; 3rd, of four or five bristles which form diverging rows, descending on both sides of the antennæ, the last being a little below the end of the second antennal joint.

The paper which I have prepared to read upon the genus Colias differs from any that I have consulted up to the present time, in that it treats principally of the habits of the different species during lifetime in the imago state.

During the last ten years giganitc strides have been made by lepidopterologists in breeding the different species of this perplexing family, and their efforts have been crowned with such succes that only a few remain about which nothing is known of the primary stages. It is about the life habits in the prefect state of someof these that I propose to address you, and if my paper does no good, it certainly cannot do any harm, as you will see by the subjoined list of my captures of the different species of Coliadæ that I have a right to express an opinion in this particular direction.

Cicindela punctulata Fab. The Cicindelas are generally regarded as diurnal, many of them appearing only during the hottest sunshine and disappearing if there comes but a cloud. In one respect punctulata is an exception, for while it flies by day like the others, it is occasionally (if not habitually) a night-flier. Several times late in summer it has been taken on my table at night, attracted by the light, and last autumn in a house in the outskirts of the city I took in this way a couple, and was told that what was considered the same insect was a frequent vistior. This habit I think is not unknown.

For several years I have observed with much interest the oviposition of our large and handsome “long-stings,” but not until this summer have I been able to witness their actions preparatory to this duty. Although the males are frequently numerous when the femals are ovipositing, the sexes pay no attention to one another, and this fact led me frequently to wonder at what time mating occurs. Last year I had, in compnay with Mr. Fletche, observed the males in strange positions, with the tip of the abdoment applied to the bark, or inserted in a crevice, and had suggested that they were awaiting the emergence of the female. The supposition was, however, not proven, and the actions observed wer still a matter of conjecture and for further observation.

EGG.—Fusiform, thick in middle, tapering both ways, the base a little broader than the summit; some examples have the side convex from middle to either end, but other have the upper half a little incurved; ribbed longitudinally, the number of ribs sixteen, three or four of which end at about four fifts the distance from base; ribs low; narrow, the spaces between flat, and crossed by many fine ridges; top rounded; the micropyle is in centre of a rosette of fine cells, outside of which is a ring of larger ones; color yellow-green. Duration of this stage four days.

Female. Length .03 inch. Head and thorax black. Antennæ 11 jointd, scape and pedicel dilated below, flagellum and club pale brown, funicle joints slender, cylindrical, club greatly and enormously enlarge, not jointed. Legs long, slender, yellow. Abdomen ovate, black shining; petiole slender, yellowish. Wings hyaline, very narrow, with extremely long ciliæ; submarginal vein short; marginal vein punctiform.

After examining the European Ammoconia caecimacula (in which the ♂ anntennæ are dentate and furnished with pencilled setae or hair; the form stout; the tibiae, of the middle and hind legs only, spinose; the thorax and abdomen with slight dorsal tuftings), I find that my species are not congeneric, and I accordingly refer them to this genus named in memory of a Brooklyn Entomologist, Harvey J. Rich, who died while yet young, and whom I knew “before the war.” The type of Richia is Chortalis and its probable dimorphic form Aratrix, though we do not know quite surely whether the two are so related or not; they occur over the West and Southwest, to Texas.

In this second paper on the North American Proctotrupidœ, I have taken up the sub-family Platygasterinœ, comprising, for the most part, small black species, all parasitic in larvæxs belonging to the Dipterous families Cecidomyiidœ and Tipulidœ.

It will be seen that I have recognized in our fauna species in all of the described genera but Iphetrachelus Haliday, and one new genus parasitic on Cecidomyious hickory galls.

Allied to F. denudata, but differing greatly in important particulars, Fore wings are bright shining seal-brown, deep orange along the costa for the basal half. At the middle of the wing at base in a narrow denuded space, and the internal angle is also devoid of scales, but much more narrowly so than in denudata. The transparent space is golden yellow in shade. Lower wings transparent golden yellow, with very bright but dark opalescent reflection. The margin and spot at the extremity of cell dark brown. Antennæ bluish black, orange brown at the base. Head, disk of thorax, and the upper portion of the abdominal segements, black. Eyes black, palpi with black at their base. Front of head, collar, sides and base of thorax, posterior edges of abdominal segments bright orange. Feet and legs wholly orange without any black bands.