92 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [May, 



WE have received a photograph of the rare moth Erebus zenobia caught 

 in a woods near Tiffin, Ohio, October 20, 1890, at 10 P.M. It was taken 

 at sugar by Mr. Lewis Ullrich. Mr. Ullrich says in regard to his capture : 

 "I collected in this woods about three nights every week after July 10, 

 1890, in the same place where this was caught, but did not see this spe- 

 cies until the night mentioned above." ED. 



I HAVE received through the kindness of Mr. |. T. Mason, of Houston, 

 Tex., a moth probably not before recorded as belonging to our fauna. 

 We are indebted to the industry of Mr. Mason for being able to add such 

 a fine species to our lists. The only reference I can find to the species is 

 in Vol. I. of Hiibner's " Exotische Schmetterlinge," where it is beauti- 

 fully figured under the name of Diphthera f estiva elegans. Both the 

 upper and undersides and both sexes are given. This is probably the 

 moth Mr. Mason refers to in his note in ENT. NEWS, Vol. II., p. 76, under 

 the name of Eugtyphia haroglyphisa, ED. 



FASHION'S NEW FAD. Not content with her slaughter of the innocents 

 in the matter of birds, Dame Fashion has extended her murderous designs 

 to moths and butterflies. The gorgeous hues of the wings of some of 

 these are deemed effective for dress decorations, and we are told that in 

 Paris exquisite gauze ball toilets are "appropriately and fancifully strewn 

 with natural butterflies." Fanciful, it is granted, but never appropriate. 

 Butterflies appear also on fans, but here only the wings are used, with the 

 body, antennae and legs sketched in afterward by an artist. Beautiful 

 effects are produced, it is said, by painting bunches of flowers on which 

 the insects seem to hover. When it is reflected that a single gauze fan 

 of the size now in vogue may hold a dozen or more butterflies or moths, 

 it is easy to estimate in what enormous quantities these creatures must 

 be taken to satisfy even a small demand. Truly a fashionable toilet is 

 .becoming a composite thing, with dead birds and butterflies, hair from 

 Indian beggars, and Mexican bugs as jewelry, held by golden chains. 



ANTS AS SURGEONS. Ants are terrible fighters. They have very pow- 

 erful jaws, considering the size of their bodies, and, therefore, their method 

 of fighting is by biting. They will bite one another, and hold on with a 

 wonderful grip of the jaws, even after their, legs have been bitten off by 

 other ants. Sometimes six or eight ants will be clinging with a death 

 grip to another, making a peculiar spectacle, some with a leg gone, and 

 some with half the body gone. One singular fact is that the grip of an 

 ant's jaw is retained even after the body has been bitten off and nothing 

 but.the head remains. This knowledge is possessed by a certain tribe of 

 Indians in Brazil, who put the ants to a very peculiar use. When an 

 Indian gets a gash cut in his hand, instead of having his hand sewed 

 together, as physicians do in this country, he procures five or six large, 

 black ants, and holding their heads near the gash, they bring their jaws 

 together in biting the flesh, and thus pull the two sides of the gash to- 

 gether. Then the Indian pinches off the bodies of the ants and leaves 



