39 



DolomedeSj renders the fact of its making a web less strange, 

 as the insects of that subgenus are known to spin some threads 

 in the shape of a little tent, at that time ; but none as yet has 

 been observed to make so regular and extensive a web as you 

 describe. 



My genus Macrosiagon is composed of the following insects : 

 Ripipliorus dimidiatus, R. timbatus, and It. tristis of Fabr. 

 The remarkable elongation of the upper lobe of the maxillae is 

 the chief character of that proposed division. These are the 

 characters : Family Mordellides, genus Macrosiagon (Rvpiphorus 

 Bosc, Fabr.). Tarsi with all their joints simple; palpi sub- 

 filiform ; antennas pectinated ; maxillse with the upper lobe 

 filiform, longer than the palpi ; scutellum not apparent ; abdo- 

 men abruptly truncated; elytra dehiscent, longer than the 

 abdomen. What is really unaccountable to me is that Fabri- 

 cius, who saw every one of these insects, should not have 

 examined the mouth of any of them. It is strange that the 

 Germans should so lono- clino- to the svstem of a man who cer- 



O O / 



tainly imposed upon himself, if he thought it sufficient or true. 

 I have just found vast quantities of an insect, the larva of 

 which feeds on the beans of the Grleditsckia triacanilia. It is a 

 Bruclms, which must be closely related to B. robinice Fabr., if it 

 is not that insect, but it does not feed on the locust. It is twice 

 as large as the B. pisi, though some specimens are not larger, 

 and the elytra cover nearly the whole of the abdomen. Do 

 you know it ? In Abbot I observed a plate representing a 

 moth, which at once brought to mind your Arctia psetider- 

 minca ; and in looking over your delineation I find but slight 

 differences ; still, as I have not studied this subject, I may be 

 mistaken in supposing it to be the same. Abbot's insect, 

 which he calls Plialoena acria, is considerably larger. I have 

 observed, however, that insects in the South are very much 

 larger in many instances than the same species in the North. 



