The following fragmentary notes are submitted to the readers of the Canadian Entomologist in the hope that they may assist in even a small measure in determining the number of this order occurring in the Dominion.

When in Canada I only incidentally captured Diptera, and the number I possess is very limited. I am indebted to F. Smith, Esq., of the British Museum, for the names of those given below.

♂ ♀. The eyes are hairy, the tibiæ unarmed. The collar is cut out in front and there is a slight tuft in front, on the dorsum of the thorax, while the sides of the patagia are determinate. Dark leather brown ; thorax concolorous, with the inner edge of the patagia with a mole or less obvious bordering of dark scales. Forewings shining leather brown, deepening in tint over costal region, somewhat darker mottled. Lines distinct, continuous, geminate, with litac-grey centers distinctly contrasting.

On April 18th of this season, while searching for insects on Montreal Mountain, I found under a stone at the foot of a hickory tree, a larva, of which the follorving is a description :

Length two inches. Form cylindrical, slightly annulated. Head reddish yellow, with two brown streaks, and marbled with lines and dots of the same color ; semi-tlansparent, shiny, slightty bilobed, with a few scattered hairs of a whitish brown color. Mandibles brown.

For the purpose of comparing it with the other species, I quote here Dr. Clemens' description of A. splendoriferella.

“Head golden; antennæ fuscous, tinged with golden. Fore wings from the base to the middle leaden grey, with a splendant lustre, and from the middle to the tip golden, with a broad, nearly straight, metallic, silvery streak, extending from the costa, near the tip, to the middle of the wing, and dark margined on both sides.

♂ .Antennæ pectinate. All the tibiæ armed or spinose. Abdomen a little flattened. Body slender ; wings ample and wide. Nearest to Agrotis collaris, but with wider wings, and rarger and differently colored. Smooth, Pale brown. Transverse lines even, with coincident pale shades. Basal half-line evident ; on the sub-basal space a pale dot followed by darker scales situate on median nervure.

The Swallow-tai1 Butterflies which occur on the Islands of Anticosti and Newfoundland, and on the north coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence are at present a subject of dispute, both as to species and position among the Papilionidæ. Having some knowledge of their localities and geographical range, I venture to state my opinion on the matter.

In Mr. Grote's recent “List of the Noctuidæ” four of the five species described by Guenæe are marked unidentified. With a very large material(nearly 100 specimens of the different species, for many of which we are indebted to Mr. F. C. Bowditch, who has found them common in the vicinity of Boston) before us, we have attempted to straighten out the species and to characterize the two genera to which we refer them.

“There are no satisfactory distinctions between some of the moths which enable any one to say that they are of such and such species, and very frequently they are separated into different kinds because they happen to feed on various plants, and because the moths are not all colored in the same manner. Of course the Entomologists that believe in the real nature of species have taken a vast deal of trouble with the Noctuina, but those who do not think a species to be anything more than an abstract idea, and that it really consists of the sum of the variations of a closely allied series of forms, do not see the use of this Natural History hair splitting.”

The confinement of the genus chionobas to high latitudes affords an example regarding distribution of species. Their food being lichens peculiar only to the Alpine regions, must confine them within a limited range. Mr. Scudder, in his “Revision of the hitherto known species of the genus chinobas, of North America”–proceed. Ent. soc. philad., vol. 5, pp. 26-28–gives them three or four localities; but these are either arctic, sub-arctic or Alpine.