76 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
larva as a pretty thick coating which gradually dries and hardens. When 
the process of drying is completed the body of the larva detaches itself 
from the covering, and the larva finds itself inclosed in a testaceous, parch- 
ment-like cocoon which is almost spherical and firmly attached between the 
leaflets to a petiole or a branch of the plant. This is all very curious, but 
still more astonishing is the faculty of the larva as well as the perfect in- 
sect to live continuously submerge^. The weevil is certainly too lazy and 
too poor a swimmer to come from time to time to the surface of the water 
for a fresh supply of air, and the larva without any doubt never ascends to 
the surface." 
This subaquatic mode of life is no doubt the reason that specimens of 
Phytobius are so rare in our cabinets, and I have hitherto seen only three 
specimens of Ph. velatus found in North America. Last fall, however, 
Mr. Hubbardand myself were fortunate enough to find, near Detroit, Mich., 
a number of specimens hibernating in moist ground on the banks of the 
Riviere Rouge, which at that locality is filled with Myriophyllum, and I 
exhibit herewith some of them. In comparing them with the descriptions 
of the two known species of Phytobius, I found that the species before you 
differs structurally in many details and notably in the absence of thoracic 
spines and tubercles. When alive the species is one of the handsomest 
Curculionids known to me; its underside is snow-white, the upperside of 
a silky-gray, and the yellow patches of scales on thorax and elytra of the 
brightest sulphur-yellow. In'spite of all precautions in killing and mount- 
ing the specimens, the colors gradually faded away and the specimens 
have now lost every trace of their original beauty. 
Since there are in our collections many undescribed species of the tribe 
Ceutorhynchini, the naming and describing of this new Pkytobius would 
be rather inopportune at this place, and is better deferred until the whole 
tribe or family can be synoptically revised. 
Mr. Schwarz also read a note on the secondary sexual char- 
acters of the North American species of Anaspis, of which the 
following is an abstract : 
There is great discrepancy in the descriptions of these characters. Dr. 
LeConte (Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. Phil., 1862, p 44) says: " In the male two 
long, slender appendages are seen proceeding from between the fourth and 
fifth ventral segments ; the fourth and fifth and sometimes the others are lon- 
gitudinally excavated." Mr. J. B. Smith (Trans. Amer. Entom. Soc., x, 
1882, p. 77) quotes the above remarks of Dr. LeConte and adds : " I must ad- 
mit, however, that I have been entirely unable to discover these processes, 
although I have examined hundreds of specimens of A. rufa to this end 
alone. Males I have found with the excavated ventral segment, but never 
the processes." It seems strange that there should be such difference of 
opinion regarding this character in our Anaspis, which by no means 
rank among the smallest Coleoptera, but the superficial appearance of 
this structure is, indeed, a most deceptive one. As Mr. Smith correctly 
