ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 131 



Brunner, in his monograph of the subfamily Phaneropterinse, 

 to which these grasshoppers belong, gives instances of similar 

 sports in other members of the same group, but I cnnnot learn 

 that the phenomenon is known in Europe, which, however, 

 possesses very few species of Phaneropterinae, excepting such 

 as are short winged, in which it could not appear to such ad- 

 vantage ; but the phenomenon is not wholly confined to this 

 group, since an example of it has been found in the true katy- 

 did, Cyrtophyllus pcrspidllatus, belonging to a distinct subfam- 

 ily, Pseudophyllinpe, taken at Point Pleasant, New Jersey, 

 1883, as reported in the proceedings of the Philadelphia 

 Academy by Lewis ; and a species allied to it was named rosct- 

 ceus by Stal, on account of the color of the wings in a specimen 

 seen by him from Central America. The Pseudophyllinse are 

 not found in Europe. 



I have never heard of this phenomenon in any other subfam- 

 ily, such, for instance, as the Conocephalinae, where we some- 

 times find dichromatism green and brown varieties. 



The causes \vhich produce this curious sport among green 

 grasshoppers are wholly unknown. The specimens I saw alive 

 appeared quite healthy and acted in a normal manner. One 

 thinks at once of autumn leaves and their change from green 

 to red, and notices that these grasshopper cases all occur in the 

 autumn, so far as known ; but then it is only in the autumn 

 that these insects mature and have their wings, and one of 

 those taken at Woods Holl was found as early as August gth. 

 Kven to the end of August, all residents at Woods Holl in 1886 

 insisted upon it that they had had no temperature at all ap- 

 proaching the freezing point ; and finally what are we to say to 

 Stal's rosaccus, taken at Chiriqui in Costa Rica? I leave these 

 questions to the physiologists. 



Preservation of Colors in Dragonflies (Odonata). 



By E. B. WILLIAMSON. 



The following note is offered more as a suggestion than as a 

 statement of any positive results. The experiments were tried 

 with only one species. I'jnillagma civile. At the time I was 



