The need of a better knowledge of the acutal structure of butterflies among those in this country who follow their study, is shown by the persistence with which an antiquated classification is adhered, to,— a classification whose only value is historical, which coceals affinities and takes no account of the progress of investigation. In the hope of stimulating the examination of objects and not of books, the following Table for the determination of the four families of butterflies, originally prepared for my forthcoming work on the New England species, is here published.

For several years I have observed with much interest the oviposition of our large and handsome “long-stings,” but not until this summer have I been able to witness their actions preparatory to this duty. Although the males are frequently numerous when the femals are ovipositing, the sexes pay no attention to one another, and this fact led me frequently to wonder at what time mating occurs. Last year I had, in compnay with Mr. Fletche, observed the males in strange positions, with the tip of the abdoment applied to the bark, or inserted in a crevice, and had suggested that they were awaiting the emergence of the female. The supposition was, however, not proven, and the actions observed wer still a matter of conjecture and for further observation.

The following species are very interesting, as they posses no spurs at the end of the tibiæ. From N. America are for species, two not yet described. All agree in the following characters: They are very slender, more or less hairy or villous, head small, narrow; antennæ long, as long as head and thorax, or at least prothorax, stout, cylindrical, becoming gradually thicker but not clavate; labial palpi a little longer than the maxillary ones; last joint very little thickened to the middle, where a superior depression makes the apical half about cylindrical, legs short, not very thick, with numerous spines and bristle, but no spurs; first joint of tarsi longer than the following, but shorter than the apical one; abdomen of male considerably longer, of femal shorter than the wings; appendages of male short approximatel cylindrical with storng hairs and spines, enlarged at the base to reach the dorsum of abdomen; between them below a very small triangular plate; female with two short flat appendages inferiorly; upper part rounded, split in the middle; wings elongate, narrow, enlarged to the bluntly pointed tip; post-costa oblique; venation dense, and sprinkled more or less with brown; costal space of front wings with two series of areoles (one species) or with one series, but the transversals in the apical half (or less) forked; at the extreme base of the hind wings of the male is a small white free knob, homologous to the larger and darker knob of Palpares and Acanthaclisis. The larva of one species is known; it differs from all others and was described by me as perhaps belonging to Acanthaclisis congener.

More than twenty-five years since (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., v.7, p. 287–288) I published an account of serious injury to living grape-vines in hot-houses in Salem, Mass., by our common species of whit ants. Termes flavipes. No further notice of their injury to living vetetation appears to have been taken unitl a few years ago, when Prof. J. H. Commstock, then government entomologist, state ( Rep. Comm. Agric., 1879, 207–8) that they had been found in Texas and Florida “girdling the bark of orange trees and guava bushes near the surface of the ground, or eating out the interior of sugar-cane and other plants.”

In my last paper I showed that C. Hagenii was a yellow form of C. Eurytheme Bois., and I am now prepared to say that Hagenii is identical with Eriphyle, and the name gives way to this. I described Eriphyle, Tr. Am. Ent. Soc., v., 202, 1876, from about thirty individuals of both sexes, taken in British Columbia, at Lake Lahache, by the late G. R. Crotch; and related that they were submitted to Mr. Henry Edwards, who pronounced them distinct from any of the Pacific coast species, an opinion with which I agreed.

Not unfrequently do I read of the capture of Southern Noctuidœ found in Canada and the Northern United States, with the added remark that the speciment was so fresh that it must have just escaped from chrysalis. These remarks are made while I am always (for ten or fifteen years past) saying that these are wind visitors, immigrants.