102 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Ashmead mentioned that bees of the genus Andrena were said 

 by Mr. Sherman to be injurious to grass. Discussed by Messrs. 

 Howard and Schwarz. The latter remarked that similar injury 

 done by the burrowing of a Nomia (TV. nevadica ?') was noticed 

 by himself, in iSSo, near Selma, Ala. A piece of pasture land 

 overgrown with Lespedeza showed bare spots, or dying plants, 

 where the burrows of the bee abounded. A Rhipiphorid beetle 

 (Myodites semiflavus) and several Mutillas were bred from the 

 cells of the bee. 



Mr. Heidemann exhibited specimens of Diaditus pictipes 

 Champion received from the town Hidalgo, on the Rio Grande 

 river, in southern Texas. This is one of the smaller Reduviids, 

 evidently belonging to the subfamily Stenopodinas. The genus 

 Diaditus was founded by Stal upon a specimen from Monte 

 video, Uruguay, which he named semicolon. Another species, 

 Diaditus annulipes, was described by Berg from Buenos Aires, 

 Argentina. Two more species, D. hirticornis and I), pictipes, 

 were described by Champion from Panama and Mexico, in the 

 Biologia Centrali- Americana, and to this last-mentioned species 

 Mr. Heidemann's specimens from Texas belong. The genus 

 Diaditus has not previously been recorded as occurring north of 

 the Mexican boundary. 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited a specimen of a Lucanid beetle ( Dorcus 

 parallelus Say) which was completely covered with mites, its size 

 being thereby several times increased. The identification of the 

 specimen in this condition was attended with considerable diffi 

 culty. Beetles and other insects were often more or less infested 

 with mites, but it was very rarely that a specimen was found 

 completely covered by them as in this instance. Such a speci 

 men was figured, the species infested being Carabus auratus^ in 

 the Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift, Volume XVII, PL I, 

 Fig. 2, 1873, by Dr. G. Kraatz. The mite, in the case of the Lu 

 canid, is an immature form of a Gamasid and not determinable. 



Mr. Busck spoke of the peculiar cocoon of a Tineid moth 

 (Marmara salictclla Clemens) which is covered with masses of 

 small round white bubbles like shot. It was a matter of conjec 

 ture what these were and how they came there until Mr. Busck, 

 in studying the habits of the living larva, watched it while en 

 gaged in spinning its cocoon. A framework of silk was first 



