The earth covered by its first mantle of snow reminds one that the collecting season is virtually ended, and the lengthening evenings allure one to the study fireside to go carefully over note books and collections and to read the recorded labors of fellow Entomologists.

A few memoranda from my own note book may perhaps not be barren of interest to some of the less experienced readers of the Entomologist. I find that almost the first insect of spring was the Mud-wasp, Polestes annulatus, which appeared with a few flies and spiders about the 15th of March. This wasp is very abundant here, and from the pulverized macadam of the streets thousands of its mud cells are constructed every summer under the window-sills and numerous cornices of the Parliament Buildings, about which the wasps linger until the end of October. Toward the end of March a few bees and a number of small beetles, as Amarainterstitialis, appeared.