1893-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 127 



There are two broods in a season, the second making its appearance in 

 July. In the latter part of July and August the species is most abundant, 

 but nearly all specimens are badly demoralized, and a perfect one is hard 

 to find. The favorite flower of the butterfly is a species of milkweed. 

 From the milkweed I have sometimes taken as many as twenty specimens 

 with a single stroke of the net, all of which, with a few exceptions, proved 

 to be imperfect. A description of the life habits of C. dione is in most 

 respects identical with that of C. thoe. Thee appears a few days before 

 dione, but is not nearly so abundant in this locality. The larva of C. 

 dione seems to be an especial attraction to the ants; on the food-plant I 

 have seen larva completely covered with them. Whether the larva itself 

 is the attraction or the gummy product of the plant I do not know. The 

 ants appear to be friendly, and never do them any injury. This is also 

 the case with C. thoe, as doubtless with all Chrysophanus larva. HENRY 

 G. WILLARD, Grinnell, Iowa. 



JOHN OBADIAH WESTWOOD, M.A., F.L.S., honorary president of the 

 British Entomological Society, died in London, January 2d. Prof. West- 

 wood was born in Sheffield in 1805. He was educated at Litchfield, and 

 was appointed in 1861 to the professorship of zoology founded at Oxford 

 by the munificence of the late Rev. F. W. Hope. 



In 1855 the Royal Society awarded him one of the royal medals for his 

 scientific works, and in 1860 he was elected to fill the place of the illus- 

 trions Humboldt as corresponding member of the Entomological Society 

 at Paris. He wrote: Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects," 

 " Entomologists' Text Book," published in 1838; " British Butterflies and 

 their Transformations," in 1841, and a number of other works of a similar 

 nature. 



IT may be of interest to the readers of the NEWS to know that I took 

 one 9 specimen of Spilosoma priina Slosson at electric light last Summer. 

 Very likely more could have been captured, but not being on the lookout 

 for the species, may have passed them over as the more commoner species 

 of the same family. I saw a specimen of priina in New York, and at 

 once recognized my unnamed specimen. It has, I believe, only previously 

 been taken in the White Mountains. I can record the capture here of 

 Ca/ytnnia calami Harvey, last July. I have not seen it mentioned in any 

 New York lists. CHAS. S. MCKNIGHT. 



OUR KNOWLEDGE OF INSECTS. In England we have about 12,000 spe- 

 cies of insects, and it is perhaps not to be expected that the ultimate total, 

 when all the smallest species have been collected and studied as assidu- 

 ously as the larger ones, will exceed this estimate by more than a tm- 

 hundrecl, or at most one or two thousand, lint with foreign countries it 

 is very different; and I must confess that I was surprised, when 1 lately 

 received a fine new species of I'/iasniida from Madagascar, to find that 

 barely half a dozen species had yet been recorded from that island. If 

 this is the state of our knowledge of such insects as I'/iasniida, how im- 



