208 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [December, 



Its appetite is always keen, and although it has been known to live a year 

 without food, it prefers to take nourishment oftener, a proceeding which 

 usually provokes the following, or similar 



Remarks: Ow! Ugh! Whew! .... By Jove! .... Great Scott! .... 

 Gosh darn it all! .... 



A true history of the above specimen. X. Y. Z. 



NEW FOOD-PLANTS of Parasa chloris. While searching for larvae of 

 6". astylus on Huckleberry bushes in Bergen County, N. J., I found, Sept. 

 20, 1891, two larvae of P. chloris on one leaf of the Swamp Blueberry 

 Vaccinium corynibosum. Another I took from the downy, or different- 

 leaved Poplar Populus heterophyllus, young plants of which grew near 

 the same swamp. These are not mentioned in Mr. Wm. Beutenmiiller's 

 " Catalogue of Lepidoptera, etc., with their Food-plants." Another larva 

 of Parasa chloris fed on Wild Cherry. Still another of the same genus, 

 if not species, I found on Black Willow Salix nigra. The latter larva 

 had orange stripes and fleshy tubercles in the place of the usual red mark- 

 ings. It was parasitized and subsequently died. Strangest of all was the 

 behavior of these larvae in the breeding-cage, in which I also had some 

 of Limacodes scapha feeding on Bayberry Myrica cerifera, and another 

 to me, unknown larva, on White Birch. In turn, P. chloris would feed 

 on the plants they were found on, and again they remained for days on 

 the other plants of the breeding-cage, feeding and thriving thereon. One 

 has now been feeding eleven days, two pupated on the underside of leaves 

 and two died of parasites. Was it not strange that they should go alter- 

 nately on Downy Poplar, Wild Cherry, Bayberry, White Birch, Black 

 Willow and Swamp Willow? I had them in a large glass-jar on my office 

 desk, where I watched them by day and night. Downy Poplar is likewise 

 known as Eastern Cottonwood. RICHARD E. KUNZE, M.D. 



THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. "A beetle cannot fly with its elytra removed." 

 F. H. Wenham, Aerial Locomotion, Smithsonian Report 1889, p. 318. 

 A few days ago along a sunny river-bank I found Cicindela hirticollis 

 abundant. Examples were taken and the elytra removed; every one flew 

 away instantly, on being released, with a speed that defied the eye to 

 follow. 



"Insects are killed quickly by putting them into a bottle containing 

 lumps of cyanide of potassium covered by plaster of Paris." So every 

 body says. To this I note three exceptional cases. One June day I hap- 

 pened to be collecting where many species of Phalaenidae were abundant. 

 Examples of several species taken were all killed quickly in my cyanide 

 bottle except one, that of Corycia vestaliata (sex not noted). To my 

 surprise it was found some time after its imprisonment alive and struggling 

 to escape. To test the matter other moths were put into the bottle, all 

 of which were quickly overcome, but C. vestaliata still lingered, having 

 withstood the fumes more than an hour. 



The second instance is similar; the species was Caber odes confusaria. 

 It was active more than thirty minutes by the watch, and, to make it sure, 



