OF WASHINGTON. 77 



therefrom and belong to the variety with abbreviated elytral vitta. 

 The cases are darker in color than those of the preceding species, 

 nearly cylindrical in shape and furnished dorsally with a few 

 straight, irregularly interrupted or abbreviate, ridges. 



Coscinoptera dominicana. A single larval case entirely dif 

 ferent from that figured by Dr. Riley* was found under a stone 

 in a weak colony of Camponotus melleus at Mt. Vernon, Va., 

 April 13, 1893. It is of a bright clay color corresponding 

 with that of the surrounding soil, quite cylindrical in shape and 

 externally smooth and without any trace of longitudinal ridges. 

 Upon opening the case a few weeks later the perfect beetle was 

 found dead within it. The great difference in form and sculp 

 ture of the larval cases made by the same species is certainly very 

 remarkable and induces me to abstain from a comparison of the 

 larval cases of the two preceding species with those found and 

 described from Colorado by Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell.f In the 

 larval case found at Mt. Vernon the larva had evidently prepared 

 to enter the chrysalid state ; for the margin of the anterior open 

 ing had been enlarged into a broad rim which was firmly glued 

 to the under surface of the stone, and a short distance above this 

 rim the larva had tightly closed its case by a circular lid. 



In answer to a question by Prof. Riley, Mr. Schwarz stated 

 that the Chrysomelid cases received by Prof. Riley from Montana 

 probably belonged to C. dominicana and were all more or less 

 provided with longitudinal ridges. He stated, further, that these 

 cases are very fragile and require very careful handling to pre 

 vent breakage, and that some of the specimens collected by him 

 were entirely destroyed on account of this extreme fragility. He 

 stated, also, that one of Prof. Riley's specimens, received from 

 Morrison, from Arizona, was a distinct form. He was convinced 

 that the larvae of all the species of this genus are myrmecophilous 

 in habit. 



Prof. Riley was greatly interested in the wide difference be 

 tween the cases of Coscinoptera dominicana figured by him 

 and those exhibited by Mr. Schwarz differences apparently due 

 to the varying nature of the soil of which they were constructed, 

 one form being in a clay soil and the other in a soil containing 



* Sixth Rep. Ins. Mo., p. 127. 



fEntom. Mo. Mag., 27, 1891, p. 190; see also Riley & Howard, Insect 

 Life, 4, 1891, p. 148, and Dr. John Hamilton, /. c., 1892, p. 268. 



