The following larvæ have the usual eloneate, sub-cylindrical form and hard integument of the notorious wire-worm; they all live in decayed wood, and pupate in cells in the wood.

For the determination of the perfect insects I am indebted to Mr. E. P. Austin.

Elater nigricollis, Herbst.—Body polished, yellowish brown, palest underneath and at the sutures of the segments; a narrow dark brown band at either end of each segment except the first and posterior end of the last segment; these bands pass entirely around the body; the last segment tapers posteriorly to a fine, dark brown point; head dark brown, the jaws black; a prop-leg beneath segment 12; length about on inch. I found several April 25, and enclosed them in my breeding cage, in which was placed some decayed oak-wood and damp sand; the first pupa was noticed August 19, and the beetle issued from it on the 30th of the same month.

Form slender; vestiture scaly; clypeus rough, with a superior arched ridge, infra-clypeal plate prominent; wings very wide, entire; apex determinate; external margin regularly rounded. Labial palpi short. Legs slender and apparently unarmed. Eyes naked, unlashed. Abdomen hardly exceeding secondaries. Body untufted on the dorsal line. The type and only species is snow white, with a large, golden, metallic, trigonate, median patch on primaries above, leaving of median vein and a reddish stain near the base of the wing.

1. Poetica Gr. Arizona.

This is one of the prettiest moths allied to Plusia in our fauna.

This paper is the result of my studies upon Mr. Neumoegen's collection, commenced last autumn, but interrupted and delayed by my bad health.

Tabanus Allynii. Length 15 mm.

Female.—Eyes naked, no ocelligerous tubercle. Front yellowishgray; callosity chestnut, nearly square, with an unconnected, spindleshaped line above. Face and cheeks yellowish-gray. Antennæ reddishyellow, annulate portion black. Palpi yellowish with white hairs. Thorax and scutellum grayish-black with minute golden-yellow pubescence; humerus reddish-brown when denuded; pleurae and pectus grayish with white or yellow hairs. Abdomen yellow, segments 4–7 black with yellow hind margins, which are expanded into triangles on the middle of segments 4 and 5; first segment black under the scutellum; second segment with a black triangle on the middle, and the third segment with a dark spot on each side of the middle. Venter yellow with a black line through the middle and tip dark. Legs—femora balck, yellow at the tips; tibiae yellow, darker at the tips; outer half of front tibia black; tarsi brownish, front ones black. Wings hyaline; stigma yellowish.

Larva.—Body polished, yellowish white, nearly cylindrical, anterior part tapers to the head; eleven visible segments; footless; posterior end of last segment deeply notched horizontally and less deeply so vertically; on each side a small notch above sinus of horizontal notch; on under side of each of the two lobes, formed by the horizontal and vertical notches, is an elliptical, reddish-brown raised spot; on under side of last segment, near the anterior end is a somewhat conical impressed spot, the base of the cone being at the anterior end of the segment; in the middle of this cone is a longitudinal impressed line; length from 20 to 25 mm.

On the 13th of July, 1881, I saw a female L. macer busily engaged in gnawing holes in the stem of a green Helianthus grosse-serratus (Wild Sunflower). There were several holes in the stem of this plant, and in each I found one or two eggs, of an elliptic-ovoid form, polished pale yellow, and measuring about two and one-fourth mm. in length. In the stems of other similar weeds, which grew near to this one, I found several recently hatched larvæ. I examined the stems of this same kind of weed at intervals throughout the summer season, and found the larvæ in different stages of their growth, sometimes two or three in the same plant. Late in October I noticed that many of these weeds had been broken off, and the pieces—from one and a half to three feet in length—were lying about upon the ground. These pieces contained a larva—evidently of the above species—and at one end, and occasionally at each end, the pith and woody part had been gnawed away, leaving nothing but the bark, and this had evidently been broken off by the wind. I examined a few of these pieces on the 25th of the following April, and found nothing but larvæ another examination was made on the 12th of the following month, when nothing but larvæ were found, but all were dead.