94 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



it had simple claws. As it has not the appearance of Gymnonychus, 

 I was somewhat puzzled until, on examining the wings, I found that the 

 lanceolate cell was widely contracted as in the subfamily Claditue, instead 

 of petiolate as in the Nematinse. The insect, therefore, must be placed 

 in the genus Anoplonyx, which Marlatt has separated from Camponiscus, 

 which has bifid claws. As no representatives of these genera were known 

 to Marlatt when he published his Revision of the Nematinas (Technical 

 Series No. 3 ; Dept. Agric, U. S., 1896), the following description of this 

 Canadian form is submitted : 



Anoplonyx Canadensis, n. sp. — Length, 5 mm. Rather slender ; 

 black, impunctate ; frontal area distinct, but not strongly marked; clypeus 

 emarginate ; antennae slender, piceous, finely pubescent, joints three to five 

 subequal ; edge of clypeus, labrum, mandibles, tegulae and legs, except 

 coxae, pale honey-yellow ; veins of wings pale, especially the costa and 

 stigma ; four submarginal cells, the second receiving both recurrent 

 nervures. 



One $ collected at Ottawa about 1885. 



CHANGES IN THE COLOUR OF BUTTERFLIES. 



BY A. RADCLIFFE GROTE, HILDESHEIM, GERMANY. 



While studying the specializations of the wing in the Papilionides, 

 the general results of which are published in the Proc. Am. Philosophical 

 Society, Jan., 1899, I found that Ip/iiclides, Ajax, Marce/lus, etc., differed 

 so strongly from the type of Turnus as to be generically separable. Ajax 

 is, in fact, allied to species having a greenish or yellowish white ground 

 colour, from South America and the Old World, while Turnus is evidently 

 related to the black North American forms, Troi/us, etc., with which it 

 flies. This fact enables me to draw the probable conclusion that Glaucus 

 represents the original colour of the species, which, so to speak, is turning 

 into Turnus. The black 9 Glaucus is the more conservative, whereas 

 the males are already, with very rare exceptions, of the yellow type of 

 Turnus. It is different with certain cases of so-called " melanism,''" now 

 spreading in Europe, as Eubyja var. Doubledayaria, and Aglia vars. 

 fere-nigra and melaina. Here the original ground colour is changing to 

 black indifferently in both sexes. 



Conversely it is the male Callosamia promethea which appears to 

 have more recently become black, while the female retains what was 

 probably the original red-brown colour of the species. I have alluded to 

 this probability in my paper on the Saturnians, Mitt, aus d. Roemer 

 Museum, June, 1896, p. 14. When compared with C. angulifera in this 

 respect, C. promethea seemed to me to be the younger, more modern 

 form, in which sexual dimorphism has more recently taken place. 



