In Entomological News, Vol. IX., pp. 95–96, Mr. T.D.A. Cockerell states that Mr. Alexander Craw, quarantine officer at San Francisco, California, had “two or three times” found Aspidiotus perniciosus on trees from Japan, and notably, on a plum tree that arrived January 25th, 1898.

Kermes pubescens, Bogue, n. sp.

♀ scale spheroidal, 3½ mm. in diameter, 3 high; pointed and grooved beneath; covered all over with short straggling whitish pubescence. Colour rather light brown, with more or less obscure and suffused dark brown bands marking the obsolete segments. Surface shining, with minute concolorous speck, but no dark spots or pits.

Macrophya flavicoxae, Nort.

Head light brown, almost orange on the vertex, a little dot at occiput, eye in a black spot; width, 1.8 mm. Body greenish white, not shining, a dusky black dorsal stripe and a very distinct velvet-black lateral one, broken into two square patches situated on the third and fifth annulets, connected by smoky shadings. The spots are broken up posteriorly and absent on joint 13. Dorsal band greenish black. Segments neatly annulate, feet on joints 6–12 and 13; anal plates immaculate. Towards the end of the stage the segments are faintly orange banded in the middle (on second and third annulets), the anal flap broadly orange.

This group was recognized as a sub-family by Newman as early as 1834, and as a distinct family by Haliday in 1839. It is represented at present by a single genus, Oryssus, Latr., which is apparenrly the stem from whence some of the parasitic Hymenoptera originated; i. e., the Megalyridae, Stephanidae, etc.

I have now, however, the pleasure of indicating below another genus, indigenous to Africa.

Although comparatively few species are described in the group, it yet appears to be widely distributed, species having been found in North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Aru, in the Malay Archipelago.

The following table made as simple as possible, and based almost exclusively upon the female sex, will serve to distinguish the species of Xiphidium hitherto described or recorded from the United States and Canada. It included only the species of Xiphidium proper; i. e., those of slender form with straight or nearly straight ovipositor, excluding the stouter species with distinctly arcuate ovipositor, commonly referred to Orchelimum, though both are classed together by Redtenbacher.

This species should be credited to Mr. Duning alone; I neither described nor named it. I did send Mr. Dunning a few Philanthidae, with MS. names and descriptive notes, and these, in the event of publication, should be credited jointly; but P. henricus is not my species in any sense. The type specimen, I should add, was collected by Professor Townsend.

Poecilochroa minuta, n. sp.

Length ♂, 4 mm.; ceph., 1.7 mm. long, 1.1 broad, patella plus tibia IV., 1.6 mm. Cephalothorax uniform reddish yellow, legs and palpi a trifle paler, except metatarse IV. which are reddish brown; sternum yellowish; abdomen black, with short white hairs and some longer black ones at base; venter with a pale streak each side; spinnerets red-brown. Head narrow; posterior eyre row slightly recurved, longer than anterior row, the P. M. E. round, their diameter apart and a near the P. S. E. as to each other, equal in size; eyes of anterior row subequal, all close rogether. No plate under fang of mandibles. Legs quite hairy, but the scopulas not dense; femora with three of four very large spines above, each spine longer than the posterior eye row; no spine above on tibia IV., one below at tip of tibia I. Sternum narrow, nearly twice as long as wide. Abdomen slender no wider than cephalothorax, sipnnerets large, an interrupted ventral fold near their base. The tibia of the male palpus has on the outer tip a large, stout, slightly curved projection one-half the length of the tarsus and blunt pointed at tip; the palpal organ is swollen near middle, the style is short.

At Brandon, Manitoba, in 1896, some very successful collecting was done on the prairies and open hillsides surrounding the town. Except in the valley of the Assiniboine River, which is still well wooded, the country around Brandon is very open–regular prairie country-with, of course, a good proportion under cultivation, it being one of the good wheat-growing districts of Manitoba.

Diastictis benigna, n. sp.

Expands 23 mm. Palpi rather long, heavy, drooping, blue-gray; front, thorax and abdomen blue-gray, the latter whitish lined posteriorly on segments. Fore wings bluish-gray, lightest on middle field, mixed with some black scales; basal line faint or obsolete, marked by a black spot on costa; middle line beginning with black spot at costa, then through black lengthened discal spot, then obsolete; outer line with black spot at costa, otherwise obsolete; outer field darker towards margin, with a large brown submarginal shading between 3 and 5. Hind wings even, smooth, blue-gray. Beneath dark bluidh fuscous on all wings, becoming blackish along outer margins; costa of fore wings speckled with black and gray.