COCCINELLID.E AND NOTES 247 



the posterior spots are distinctly nearer the lateral edge than they 

 are to the suture and in similar degree to the anterior spots, so that 

 from a dorsal point of view the four spots form a square. In 

 hogei the posterior spots are equidistant from the suture and lateral 

 edges, while the anterior spots are nearly as in septentrionis, much 

 nearer the lateral edges than the suture, so that, viewed in the same 

 way, the four spots form an inverted trapezoid; this difference is 

 accentuated by reason of the fact that the body in hogei is more 

 broadly oval than in septentrionis. 



There is surprisingly little intra-specific variability of the macu- 

 lation in Exochomns, as well as many other genera of Coccinellidae, 

 although some genera, such as Hippodamia and to a less degree 

 Coccinella, are characterized by much more evident inconstancy 

 in the ornamentation. The same criteria of inconstancy cannot be 

 applied to all the genera of the family, some are constant and 

 some inconstant. 



A few months after the above was written, identically as printed, 

 there appeared an article by Mr. Leng (Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc., 

 1911, p. 6) on variable maculation in the Coccinellidae, in which 

 the author labors under several evident misconceptions. 



The language on page 7: "Otherwise its attitude appears to be 

 not very different from that of his former work on Coccinellidae, 

 published in 1899, in which he did not hesitate to adopt 'type of 

 coloration as a primary taxonomic character,' ' for example, taken 

 in connection with the substance of the succeeding paragraph, 

 where he alludes to the occasional presence of a basal spot in Hip- 

 podamia glacialis, when I had stated that it is invariably absent, 

 as overthrowing my theory of the importance of type of ornamenta- 

 tion, proves conclusively that he has merely misapprehended the 

 meaning of my expression "type of ornamentation." This phrase 

 does not refer at all to the diversification of color pattern by reason 

 of reduction or expansion, but to marked differences in the scheme 

 of ornamentation. Excepting arizonicus, which Mr. Leng correctly 

 assigned to a different genus or subgenus, all of our species of 

 Exochomns, for instance, have a similar type of ornamentation 

 when considered in a broad sense of that term, consisting, in its 

 normal form, of a sutural stripe and two spots of black on each 



