The interesting new species of Branconid describedæ below, unless otherwise state, were all captured by my good friend. Mr. W. Hague Harrington, at Ottawa, Canada.

Bracon Fabr

(1)Bracon brachyurus n. sp.

♀—Length 2⅘ mm.; ovip ⅕ mm. Black, polished; mandibles, palpi and legs, except the posterior coxæ and the basal two-thirds of their femora, yellowish-brown. Tegulæ honey-yellow. The head is transverse, the cheeks rounded off posteriorly. Antennæ 22-jointed. The parapsides are not sharply defined, only indicated by slight depressions in the mesonotal surface.

Havin been asked by Sir William Dawson to look over two collections of insects which had been sent in in competition for a prize, I was delighted to find in one of them a speciment of this very rare moth.

Knowing that everything in connection with the capture of such a rarity would be of interest, I asked Sir William to ascertain from Mr. R. McDougall, the collector, all the facts that he could furnish in connection with such an interesting event, and I duly received, through Sir William, a letter about it, from which I extract the following account:-

“The moth was caught at Ormstown, Chateauguay County, and was the only one observed during the summer.

Sitzus speciosus is the largest native ground-hornet, and its formidable appearance and great activity generally secure it undisputed possesion of the square rod where it happens to alight. It is from an inch to an inch and one-half in length; the head and thorax are brown, and the abdomen is black with six irregular yellow blotches.

My collecting at Little Metis having been confined to July and August, my knowledge of the forms occurring there is necessarily very incomplete; but as the insect fauna of the Lower St.Lawrence seems to differ considerably from that of Ontario and the western part of Quebec, I venture to give a list of the species I know to occur there, and hope that in the event of my not going there again, some other entomologist will give us a list of additions.

Egg.—Oval; pale apple green, smooth shining; slightly flattened above and below. Width, 2 mm.; height, 1.50 mm.

Clemens, in his Synopsis of North American Sphingidæ, p. 182 (Journ.Ac. Nat. Sci., Phil., 1859), describes the egg as being “smooth, white, with an equatorial reddish-brown band, having a slender central white line.” All the eggs, about one hundered and fifty in number, which I examined were entirely green, with no indications whatever of the bands mentioned by Clemens.