Having had several enquiries addressed to me as to how I captured the Pselaphidæ, etc., a list of which appeared in the Entomologist of March, 1881, it has occurred to me that it might be acceptable to some of my entomological brethren to have a detailed account of my method of moss-hunting published in our organ.

First, then, as to gathering the moss. For pedestrian excursions, a game bag, or haversack, to sling over the shoulder, will be most convenient; where a vehicle is employed, a pillow case or grain bag may be used, and in either case a small hand rake about a foot long will be found very useful. As soon as the snow leaves the ground, the collector may seek some open swampy woods, where the ground in varied with little mounds by the decay of fallen trees or the upturned roots of wind-falls, which are overgrown with mixed mosses,—or the banks of a pond or creek, strewn with rotting logs and branches.

Egg.—Sub-rotund, broadest at base, and there flattened; surface slightly rough, but without definite markings under a pretty high power; color greenish-white. Duration of this stage about 7 days.

Young Larva.—Length just from egg, .09 inch; color yellow-white; but in a few hours changes to pale green; shape cylindrical, long, slender; the last segment bluntly bifurcated; on each segment a few tubercles, each of which gives out a clubbed white hair; head, at first, nearly twice as broad as 2, obovoid, truncated and depressed; on each vertex a small rounded prominence, indented at top, and from the middle of the hollow rises a little tubercle, with a bristle; color light brown; the surface shallowly pitted, and sparsely pilose; ocelli reddish brown.

The family of Nemistrinidæ comprises throughout the world one hundred and ten described species, six or seven of which are from Southern Europe and three from North America; the remainder nearly equally distributed in Asia, Africa, Australia and South America. In their habits, so far as known, the species approach the Bombylidæ most closely, as also do many in their general appearance. Structurally they are of interest to the Dipterologist, on account of their intricate and diverse neuration, which in some species is almost Neuropter-like in the reticulation.

Doubtless the number of our species will be augmented by future discoveries, but yet we can never expect a very material increase.

Since the groups are very difficult of scientific definition in the Noctuidœ, the present must not be considered as standing on more than a comparative basis. In my New Check List the genera are arranged between the Calpinœ and Heliothinœ. The arrangement I would only modify by restricting the Calpinœ to the North American genera—Calpe, with one species, perhaps the same as the European, and Phiprosopus, with the species callitrichoides, called a Geometrid by Zeller, and which in outline has a resemblance to the aberrant Noctuid genus Doryodes, which I have placed among the Nonagriinœ, or Nonagriadœ of Dr. Harris. The group which I have called Stiriinœ is in some measure intermediate between the Calpinœ and Plusiinœ. The fact that the tibiae are often armed with a claw (Stiria, Basilodes) may be taken as an approximation to the Heliothinœ, where the tibiae are usually armed and have the tibiae spinose.