1 890.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 89 



I found that the nervure in question was totally obliterated in 

 both anterior wings of both specimens. I also found that both 

 specimens did not belong to the same species, one of them prov- 

 ing to be Nomada imbricata. Of the other thirteen specimens 

 of maculata, and seven specimens of imbricata, taken during the 

 same time, all have the three submarginal cells complete, there 

 being no apparent tendency of the first transverse cubital nervure 

 to become obliterated. I have, also, one specimen of Collete.s 

 Sp. and one of Andrena Sp. , which have three submarginal cells 

 to one anterior wing, but only two to the other. 



-o- 



ON THE HABITS OF SOME MELOINI. 



BY H. F. WICKHAM. 



Some of our large Western Meloini make striking additions 

 to any cabinet by their bright colors and curious forms. Of these 

 the most beautiful is, in my estimation, Cysteodemus wislizeni: 

 This species, with its small head and thorax and immensely in- 

 flated elytra which give the hinder part of the body a globular 

 outline, is rather a clumsy object, though its bright blue color 

 more than compensates for any inelegance of form. One who 

 had seen only dead specimens would naturally suppose that it 

 was slow in movement when in fact the exact reverse is the case. 



In 1888 I spent a few days at Luna, N. Mex., a nominal station 

 twenty-two miles west of Albuquerque. Near the switch the 

 grass was growing very luxuriantly, and here I had the good 

 fortune to find a colony of this pretty beetle. We arrived in the 

 early morning, and just as I was getting up from the breakfast 

 table in our car, one of the men who had gone out a few minutes 

 before me stuck his head in the door and deposited a " bug" on 

 the floor, which he said he had found running around just out- 

 side the car. He looked on it with suspicion, for it had exuded 

 a quantity of yellowish liquid which stuck to our friend's fingers 

 and smelled something like an infusion of all the different vege- 

 tables one can think of. I didn't let this prevent me from picking 

 up the "bug," which proved to be the Cysteodemus mentioned 

 above, and after a few moments spent in admiration of the brilliant 

 colors, started out to find some more. 



I was not yet familiar with its habits, and got only two or three 

 in the few minutes I had to spare before leav : ng for the scene of 



