70 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



silvery cinereous, with two narrow concolorous median vittj« reaching 

 scutellum, humeri and pleurae silvery-white ; scutellum pale testaceous. 

 Abdomen pale yellowish rufous, silvery-pollinose, with a median black 

 vitta which widens over most of third segment and all of anal ; second 

 segment with a lateral macrochseta and a median marginal pair, third 

 and anal segments with a marginal row ; venter pale yellowish at base, 

 darker toward anus. Legs pale yellowish, tarsi blackish, femora and tibiae 

 hairy and slightly bristly ; claws and pulvilli very short. Wings grayish- 

 hyaline; first, third and fifth veins spined their whole length, except tips of 

 two latter ; apical cell narrowly open exactly in tip of wing, fourth vein 

 roundly curved at bend, hind cross-vein slightly nearer to small cross-vein 

 than to bend of fourth ; tegulse nearly pure white, halteres yellow. 



Length of body, 4 mm.; of wing, 31^ mm. 



Described from one specimen ; Washington, D. C., August. 



My obi a diadema, Wd. 



Mr. V. d. Wulp (Biol. C.-A. Dipt., IL) describes this species as having 

 the epistoma "slightly prominent". A $ specimen from N. Y. (Com- 

 stock), which I refer to this species, has the front golden like the thorax, 

 the face silvery, and the oral margin or epistoma is what I should call 

 " very prominent ", 



[to be continued.] 



GETTING BUTTERFLY EGGS. 



BY W. G. WRIGHT, SAN BERNARDINO, GAL. 



It is generally understood, I believe, that to get eggs the requisite 

 plant must be also enclosed in the gauze bag with the female insect. 

 Such is often, but not always the fact, and it will lighten the labours of the 

 biologist and simplify his methods if a more correct statement be made. 

 That one genus of butterflies should not use or require living plants to 

 receive their eggs, while others will fret and die without ovipositing if 

 their peculiar plant be withheld, indicates a relationship, or gives a hint as 

 to grouping of genera upon natural lines. But if so, it plays havoc with 

 existing groupings, and will cause the arbitrary to give place to the 

 natural when these things become better understood. 



The genera of butterflies, with the living forms of which I am 

 acquainted, and of which the females do not require plants in ovipositing, 

 are as follows : — Parnassius, Argynnis, Euptoieta, Neonympha, Coe- 



