Baptolinus Pilicornis, Payk.

Till lately this species has been known in our literature as B. macrocephalus, Nord. It has a very wide distribution across the northern part of the continent, from Alaska to New Hampshire, and through the Alleghanies as for south as southern Pennsylvania, and probably much further. In Europe it ascends to 68°, and is spread over all Siberia to the Amur. It does not seem to be abundant anywhere. It is very variable in colour, and to some extent in the fineness or coarseness of the general punctuation. I took two examples here recently under the bark of a mosscovered decaying oak, and several a few days afterward on the mountains, in the same situation. All these are black and shining, with the mouth parts, antennæ and legs pale, corresponding to the description of Paykull's type. Four examples from Vermont have the mouth parts and the antennæ rufous, and the elyta, rufous, grading imperceptibly to rufo-piceous at the apex and sides.

The following is a purely provisional grouping of the described North American species of Sapromyza, made up from the descriptions alone. As such, it is offered for publication. The practical use of this kind of work does not need pointing out. It greatly facilitates the identification of species where the descriptions are scattered through various works. In the determination of the single new species described at the end of this paper, it was necessary to consult each description separately. It required but little additional labour to tabulate the leading points in the descriptions, thus relieving later students from the necessity of going through the same laborous process.

Mr. Neumoegen and myself are at work upon this genus, with a view to present a revision of it; there are, however, some points upon which I should like to make a few independent remarks. The genus Halisidota is exclusively American, its stronghold being in the South. Indeed, the whole sub-family, the Phægopterinæ, are strongly, American, there being no European species and but few African, While still fewer reach through the East Indies to Australia.

Three days before that last moult, the larva is 1.30 inches; after the last moult and three days before pupating, 2 inches. Nearly cylindrical, tapering from the middle to both ends, the under side a little flattened, a slight fold above the legs but no fringe on the sides. The markings in the two last stages are the same, except that the orange is a little heavier in the last stage. The ground colour of dorsum, sides except below stigmata, and venter sordid white, below stigmata clear white; striped transversely over the back as low as the stigmata, thus leaving a clear white substigmatal stripe, eight of these stripes and these somewhat double, some broken and others partly continuous; a subdorsal and substigmatal row of orange patches, two of each row on each joint, the lower of each side of the stigma on the anterior part of the body, but on the posterior part these patches connect above the stigma, gradually passing from one from to the other; on joint two, instead of two pathces, the anterior half of the joint is orange with a row of black spots; joints three and four with an irregular row of orange across near the middle of the joint.

In 1878 Dr. Arnold Forster, in his “Kleine Monographie”, erected many new genera in the family Chalcididæ that have been either overlooked by subsequent entomologists, or, at least, not included in any recent tables of the genera of this family, amongst which is a genus he calls Cratœpus placed by him in the Tetrastichoidœ, and which I am pleased to announce also occurs in America.

It is a well known fact that certain plants, as Sliene antirrhina, L., and allied species, exude a sticky, viscid substance of stalk or peduncle for the purpose of preventing ants, small beetles, and other honey-loving intruders, which are too small to aid effectively in fertilization, from creeping up to the flower and robbing the honey-glands of their precious nectar. Other plants, as the Sundews, Drosera rotundifolia, L. etc., excrete a smiliar substance with which they attact insects, which are caught and afterwards utilized as food by the plant.

During the last days of August, Dr. Kellicott and myself, in studying the Squash borer, Melittia ceto, transplanted to a large breeding cage a number of roots and portions of the stems of Squash vines, on one of which was a leaf or two. The cage was filled with earth, dug up in the field, and when the vines were properly transplanted, the cage was covered with fine Swiss muslin, and placed in the Insectary. I soon noticed Siphonophora on the stumps of the vines, and before long there sprung up, from the soil in the cage, numbers of plants of Capsella bursapastoris and Nepta glechoma.

Grandfather Mountain is one of a group of mountains rising to a height of over 6000 feet, in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, and forming the topmost crest of the Alleghanies. The rocks are chiefly granitic, and the crags and peaks, naturally of a grayish cast, but rendered more sombre by innumerable blackish foliaceous lichens (Umbilicaria sps). At the bases of the summit crags the forest begins; black spruces and balsam firs, alternating with open meadow-like fields of the sand myrtle (Leiophyllum buxifolium), characterize the upper levels, and enormous hemlocks from 5000 feet down; but everywhere is a wealth of magnificent deciduous trees that can hardly be matched elsewhere on this continent.

In the “West American Scientist” for January, 1891, I gave a brief description of Rhaphiomidas acton n. sp. comparing it with the only other described species R. episcopus O.S. The description was drawn from a single male speciment now in the National Museum at Washington, but during the past season I was fortunate enough to capture four additional specimens of this species, three males and a female, all of them having been taken on the wing while hovering over flowers in the hottest part of the day, the time being the first week in July. The possession of these specimens permits me to make a few corrections to my publihsed description.