Among the new genera lately separated by Theobald from Ædes and Uranotœnia, the differences seem at times puzzling, and without an opportunity to study the types, it is not always easy to feel sure of the position of a new insect. It is also to be noted that in some of these genera the male is unknown, and it may possibly happen that they belong to the class having long palpi in the male. This is very definitely suggested by a mosquito received recently from Bayamban, Pangasinan, P.I., which, while having long palpi in the male, flat scales (no curved ones) on the head, curved scales only on the scutellum, still has the wing characteristics of Uranotœnia.

Amesolytus pictus, n. sp.— Length of body 8mm, length of antennæ 4 mm.; expanse of wings, 13 mm.

Head: Clypeus white, pilose, somewhat mottled in appearance; mouth organs white; upper portions of the head black, except that on either side of the front there is a white line next the eye, and above the eye on either side of white semi-oval patch extending behind the ocelli. Eyes oval, large, protubernat, dark brown with a gloss. Ocelli jet black, Cheek, lower part white; upper part black.

While arranging the flies of this family contained in the Garry de N. Hough collection of the University of Chicago, together with my own material, a number of notes have been made, which are here given. This family, like a number of other dipterous groups, needs monographic study owing to the confused and scattered descriptions of most of the forms. Of recent years the number of genera has been multiplied, although the authors have neglected to sift out the older species belonging to these new groups. Accordingly, the older genera, like Sargus for example, contain species of several of the modern subdivisions.

Thymaris Slingerlandana new species—♀. Length, 4.5mm.; ovipositor about one-third the length of the abdomen. Black, subopaue, the head and thorax very finely, microscopically punctate, with a sparse, glittering, white pubescence, which is dense or more distinct on the lower part of the face, the cheeks, the pleura and the metanotum; ocelli pale or opalescent; palpi whitish; scape and pedicel of antennæ the tegulæ, the front and middle coxæ and tronchanters, the hind trochangters except at base of first joint, and all tarsi, except as hereafter noted, honey-yellow, the hind coxæ, base of hind trochanters, a spot at base of hind tibiæ outwardly and at apex, and the apices of hind tarsl joints 1, 2 and 3 and joints 4 and 5 entirely, black; rest of legs pale ferruginous; wings hyalime, iridescent, the stigma and veins light brown, metathorax incompletely areloated, the areola alone complete or distinct pentagonal; abdomen subfusiform longly petiolated, about one-half longer than the thorax, subcompressed towards apex and entirely black, except the ventral fold, at apex of the petiole and on segments 2 and 3, which in honey-yellow.

Spending the summer in England, I have, of course, hastened to examine the types of F. Srnith, and other bees contained in the collection of the British Museum. The following notes elucidate some species which had puzzled American entomologists, who had access only to the descriptions:

Chelostomoides rugifrons (Smith)

Chelostoma rugifrons, Sm., type ♀.—Would be large for Chelostoma; a transverse ridge, with large punctures, below the antennæ, and below this a smooth shining impunctate depressed area, bounded on each side by a vertical ridge, so that one gets the impression at first that the clypeus is very broadly and deeply emarginate; the long labrum, seen from above, looks like the end of an elephant's trunk, being broadened at the end, and presenting a median elevation; the “tooth near the base within” of the mandibles is a shining tubercle; the recurrrent nervures join second submarginal cell at about distances from its base and apex respectively; the basal nervure just falils to reach transverso-medical; claws broad and angled basally, but not cleft; no pulvillus (Chelostoma florisomne has a large pulvillus); first abdominal segment with a distinctly margined though shallow concavity.

The eggs of this rare species were kindly sent me from Tacubaja, Mexico by Mr. O. W. Barrett. The food-plant of the caterpillar was unknown to him. Heretofore we have only had the figures of the mature larva of three species of this genus, and four sketches of the caterpillar of A. armida, the better known species of this interesting genus, which ranges from Mexico to Brazil. The larva figured by Madam Merian, Stoll, Burmeister, and by Peters, is represented as being smooth, without any tubercles, horns, or hairs.

Last summer, on August 24th, a few hours were spent at Moose Jaw collecting Orthoptera. But few species were taken, and they are here listed for the locality. They were all taken on the open prairie, out a short distanace from the town.

The crickets, or Gryllidæ, like the other families of Orthoptera, have received so little attention from Canadian entomologists that very few species have been reported from the country, and most of these few records are of little value, as they were made at a time when the family had been little studied, and the species wre ill define. Much has been done of late, however, by American entomologists, notably Sucuder and Blatchely, to unravel these difficulites, although the family is still a very diffucult one to deal with, and much patience and close observation is necessary in order to separate the species satisfactorily.

Stagmatoptera typhon, n. sp.—Type ♀; Sam Marcos, Nicaragua (Baker). Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila.

Allied to sancta and birivia, Stoll., and insatiabilis, Rehn. From the sancta-insatiabilis type it differs in the shorter and broader tegmina and wings, the wider and more rotundate expansion of the pronotum, the deeper head and slenderer anterior femora. From the birivia type it can easily be distinguished by the extremely short and broad wings and legmina, the more arcuate expansions and more compressed shaft of the pronotum, as well as the absence of distinct maculations on the tegmina.

On the 18th of June, 1904, while collecting dragon-fly nymphs in Grenadier Pond, Toronto, I found two Gomphus exuviæ resting on the surface of a thick growth of algæ a few feet from the edge of the pond. I examined the debris and black swamp mud from the bottom, just below, the spot where the skins were taken, and found one nymph about two-thirds grown, apparently of the same species. On June 20th I found another exuvia on a similar part of the shore, and on examining the bottom I found several half-grown nymphs and one full-grown one, which was crawling along the surface of the algæ, evidently ready to transform. In the evening a male Gomphus furcifer emerged.

Since any work in this group must of necessity be a review of that done by the late Dr. Geo. D. Hulst, I want to state in this begining of mine, that it is not to be regarded as a criticism.

Dr. Hulst made (for him) some curious errors, which will be noted later on, but the immense work he did in untangling the synonymy of this variable group, and in his two trips across the ocean to study the types, cannot be overestimated, and by it mine is rendered easy.

With the opening of the season, my son, Kenneth R. Stevenson, has proceeded to keep up his reputation as a Coleopterist by finding two specimens of Aphodius erraticus, Linn., on the first of May under stones on a waste piece of ground in Maplewood, near Montreal.

As the Editor expresses willingness to receive notes on any entomological subject, I give my experience with “vertical” inflation of caterpillars. I have done a great deal of inflating, and find three bad faults with the common horizontal ovens.

Ist. The air pressure necessary to extedn the caterpillar oftern is enough to force the skin out of shape.

Scarcely any two men who have studied the Lycosidæ have interpreted or defined the genera of the family wholly in the same way. The purely relative nature of the characters most frequently used in separating the species into genera leaves room for much diversity in opinion and usage; and, in consequence, it is not surprising to find that genera used without question by one arachnologist are by others unhesitatingly relegated to synonymy.

Colletes niger, n. sp. — ♀. Black, shining, with long erect jet black pubescence; clypeus prominent, with coarse close punctures tending to form striæ on either side of a shallow median longitudianl depression, and with a deep transverse depression just before the sharply truncate apex; face above and on sides of clypeus much more closely and finely punctured, and covered with a long and dense pubescence which extends over the clypeus itself; vertex and cheeks very finely punctured, the former practically bare except for a tuft of long hairs in the interocellular space, the latter with abundant long hairs; ocelli pale, opalescent; occiput fringed with long erect pubescence; malar space smooth, its length about, two-thirds width of mandible at base; mandibles slender and polished, deeply grooved without, notched almost at the tip, which is blunt and slightly rufescent in some lights; labrum with a rounded median pit at base; antennæ entirely glossy black, the first joint of the flagellum as long as the second and third together; no prothoracic spines; disc of mesothorax sparsely covered with erect hairs and with a few fine punctures, the pubescence becoming longer and denser and the punctuation finer and much closer on the sides, especially anteriorly;

Scarcely a season passes that some newly-introducted, pernicious insects from across the eastern or western oceans are not reported in the United States or Canada. These immigrants, leaving being them their natural enemies, and apparently greatly invigorated by the change of climate, usually multiply with rapidity and soon prove exceedingly destructive.