1892.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 151 



third and fourth segments yellow; segments three, four and five each with 

 a median yellow stripe and a broader one each side; venter yellow, a 

 basal triangle and sides before the apex, black. Legs yellow, apices of 

 middle and hind femora, upper side of front femora, tibiae, except at the 

 apex of each, and whole of tarsi, brownish. Wings grayish hyaline; 

 halteres brown, the knob yellow. Length 4 mm. 



Los Angeles County, California. A single specimen. 



The second basal and discal cells are united in each wing, but 

 whether this is a permanent character, or simply a defect of this 

 individual specimen, I am unable to say. In all other structural 

 characters it agrees perfectly with Dalmannia picta Williston, 

 originally described from Arizonia, but which I have collected in 

 various parts of southern California. 



NOVEL SMUGGLING. The account of the smuggler recently arrested 

 by the Customs authorities in this city, who had a quantity of diamonds 

 under a porous plaster on his back, reminds me of an even more in A el 

 device that came to my knowledge some years ago. A Philadelphia 

 physician was attacked by that most seductive craze, the collector's mania 

 for beetles and bugs. After this had been going* on for some years and 

 the result had become one of the finest collections of Coleoptera anywhere 

 extant, he began to find that the mad desire for very rare specimens to 

 rill up the occasional gaps in his otherwise perfect series of creeping 

 things was too great a drain on his exchequer. To be sure he was a 

 bachelor, under light expenses, and already blessed with a fair inheritance. 

 Then, too, he had built up a considerable practice in that branch of medi- 

 cine which he described as " leading man at baby matinees." Still, rare 

 bugs come high, and he could not afford the continually increasing drain. 

 Just at this juncture some one seems to have hit upon a very novel expe- 

 dient. Whether the fertile brain belonged to the doctor, or to a young 

 friend, a scion of one of Philadelphia's oldest and proudest families, who 

 was and is a member of a prominent house of jewelers, I never learned. 

 However that may be, the interest of the story hinges on the fact that 

 certain rare beetles came in from South Africa the Kimberly diamond 

 fields, in fact nicely packed in raw cotton, and some of the largest of 

 these were most unaccountably heavy. While the outer anatomy was of 

 most interest to the doctor, who valued these rare specimens as such, the 

 inner anatomy appeared to be of far greater interest to his friend. A 

 careful investigation, I am told, resulted in demonstrating the fact that the 

 added weight in these specimens was due to a certain undigested mineral 

 substance that was found in the abdominal cavities of some of the largest 

 specimens. Though these specimens were pronounced to be herbifenms, 

 still when certain cutting and polishing processes were finished 1 heard 

 that these mineral substances were found to be "of good color and the 

 first water." Whether the method of thwarting the watchful Customs 

 agents is still in use I cannot say. AViv York Toicn Topics. 



