Œdipoda obliterata, nov. sp.

Male and female. Length to tip of elytra 1.50, to tip of abdomen 1.10 to 1.30. Pale reddish-brown or dull yellowish tinged with rufous, with irregular transverse bands of dark fuscous spots.

Occiput not prominent. Vertex broad, moderately deflexed, margins with sharp carinæ forming a distinct sub-quadrate, median foveola, which is divided into two equal sections by a distinct longitudinal, median carina that extends back part way upon the occiput; sides of the foveola parallel between the eyes, and bending abruptly inward toward the fastigium in front, continuous with the sides of the frontal costa; fastigium with a double indentation.

The season of warm days, flowers and butterflies is over now, and the look-out is cold, bleak and bare. Apparently there is little for the scientific lover of nature to do in the way of collections at this time of year ; such, however, is far from being actually the case, as all who have collected will testify.

During the present summer three species of Lyita have been very abundant and destructive here. The Striped Blister-beetle ( Lytta vittata) in the early part of the season, about the end of June, began to do mischief to the Potato plants, especially where they were weedy. Later on, about the middle of July, this species was joined by the White-edged Blister-beetle ( L. marginata ), and both together fell upon the later kinds of Potato (in my garden the Buckeye).

An enemy of Abies nigra sent to me by Mr. C. S. Sargent, from the Arboretum of Harvard University, induced me to compare the literature about the enemies of this tree. To my surprise, all that is published consists of two very excellent papers by Mr. Ch. H. Peck, Albany.

There are probably over ninety thousand different species of Beetles in the world, and first and foremost of this mighty legion stand the Cicindelidæ. Well, therefore, might they demand our attention from their high position in the Coleopterous world alone ; but they have many other claims on our consideration.

On plate iv. of the “Fauna Boreali-Americana,” Kirby gives a figure of the ♀ of the above species. In June, 1878, while collecting at the Godbout River, Lower St. Lawrence, I captured two males of this species, both on the same day. While Alypia Langtonii, Couper, were abundant in the same locality, no other specimens of A. MacCullochii were seen.

EGG—Conoidal, truncated, broad at base, the sides moderately rounded ; depressed at summit; marked by about eighteen prominent, vertical, slightly wavy ribs, half of which extend from base to summit and form around the latter a serrated rim ; the remainder end irregularly at two thirds to three quarters distance from base ; between each pair of ribs are equidistant transverse striæ. Broader at base than Alcestis or Idalia. Duration of this stage 12 to 17 days.

Almost everyone, I imagine, has had at some time or other his wonder and curiosity excited by the strange-looking pupa of the Tomato Worm, as it is familiarly termed. It is frequently discovered when digging potatoes in the autumn, or disturbing the soil where tomatoes have been grown. This singular object, which is very correctly represented in the figure, is about two and a half inches long and half an inch diameter, of a chestnut brown color, and round in shape, tapering towards both ends ; from one end, which is the head of the specimen, there proceeds a long curved proboscis like the handle of a jug; the other end is divided into broad rings and terminates in a point.

The paper published Canad. Ent., vol. xi., p. 110-14, was reprinted with some additions as a pamphlet, Cambridge, December, 1879. The recorded experiment on the Potato Bug made by Mr. James H. Burns, proved evidently the poisonous character of the yeast-fungus. The fifty beetles which were sprinkled with it died mostly on the eighth day, and the rest in the four following days.

I. Nephele.—Kirby, Faun. Bor. Amer., 1837, described this species as follows : “Wings brown ; primaries both above and below with a paler submarginal broad band including two eyelets ; the upper ones surrounded by a paler atmosphere, with a black iris and white pupil ; on the under side the atmosphere of the eyelets is most distinct and forms a kind of glory round them,” etc.

Egg—Conoidal, truncated, the top a little arched ; the sides more or less convex, varying; the height to the breadth as 9 to 7; marked by 14 straight ribs, which are compressed and elevated, and run from base to top ; crossed by about 11 striæ, horizontal, rather prominent ; the spaces between the ribs and striæ are quadrangular, the shortest side being with the long axis of the egg; these spaces are depressed and are either flat or slightly convex ; the summit is covered with rows of cells, concentric, those of the outer two rows large, hexagonal and irregular, of the third row small, hexagonal ; within these are 8 small cells, not depressed, irregularly rhomboidal and forming an eight-rayed star ; in the centre a minute star of six rays. Duration of this stage 4 to 5 days.

Catocala ultronia.

In the genus Catocala is included a number of very beautiful moths, many of them of large size, and restricted in their distribution to the northern portions of America. Most of them have the hind wings red, banded with black, and hence have received the common appellation of “Red under-wings.”

Limenitis Eros.

Allied to Disippus, wings less produced, and in female very broad.

Male—Expands about 2.6 inch.

Upper side very dark red-brown; hind margins bordered broadly with black, costal margins narrowly; inner margin of primaries black to the submedian nervure ; all nervures and branches black, and narrowly edged with same color ; against the end of cell on primaries a long subtriangular black patch, its short side resting on costa, its apex prolonged into a stripe which reaches the border of hind margin below first branch of median ; beyond the disk on secondaries a transverse curved narrow black stripe from margin to margin ; within the borders and near their inner edges a common series of white spots, which on secondaries are small and more or less obsolete ; on the black triangle three white spots in line, the two nearest costa large, the third minute ; a white spot at the origin of upper subcostal interspace and a white streak on outer side of costal nervure opposite the triangle and a little way toward base ; fringes black, white in the middle of each interspace.

Length when at rest, 1.25 inches; in shape tapering slightly from the middle forward, but more rapidly from that point backward ; the body deeper than broad. General color bright clear green, a little spotted with white, marked as follows : head gray, a little lighter through the centre ; joint I contains two dark purplish black warts on the dorsum, reddish purple at the base, the space between them whitish.

Microgaster utilis, n. sp.

Length .11 of an inch. Head, thorax and abdomen of the males uniform black, the females the same with the exception that the under side of the second and third basal joints of the abdomen are tawny. Antennæ fuscous, somewhat rufous at base. Legs and feet tawny, rather pale, the knees of the hind pair dusky, the most so in the males.

The official publication of Bulletin 4, “The Hessian Fly,” by Dr. A. S. Packard, for the N. A. Entom. Commission, has induced me to study again the question of the importation of this insect by Hessian troops at an early period of the war. The excellent memoir by Dr. A. Fitch was believed to have settled this question in a final manner; therefore his opinion was accepted by all subsequent American writers.