14 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., 'iS 



usual. In the latter character they resemble those from the 

 Calaveras Big Trees. The pubescence increases in coarseness to 

 the northward. Specimens from Lassen County, California, 

 and Josephine County, Oregon, have the coarsest pubescence 

 and punctuation, and where the narrower form becomes can- 

 onica Casey. 



Specimens with coarse pubescence and punctuation are 

 found among those taken in Eldorado and Calaveras Counties 

 and to the southward ; but they are fewer in number than to 

 the northward. The transition from one variant into the 

 other is gradual in all directions, and therefore no limitation 

 can be drawn between them. They are all included under 

 normal specific variation. If there are different species or 

 races they must be defined from larval or pupal characters 

 or from both. 



Analogy is found in the series collected on the south fork 

 of the Kaweah River, Tulare County, California, by Mr. Ralph 

 Hopping, whose entire collection of Coniontis is before the 

 writer. Montana in that region gives a variation pcrspicua 

 Casey that is the opposite of canonica in form. Canonica 

 is narrower, and pcrspicua is much broader than montana. 

 In Mr. Hopping's series the specimens gradate so evenly that 

 it is impossible to tell where w.ontana ends and pcrspicua be- 

 gins. 



Pcrspicua and globulina are anomalous forms ; canonica 

 less so. It is unfortunate that globulina is a type species, for 

 it is the same as if a dwarf or a hunchback was the type of 

 Homo sapiens. 



These forms are undoubtedly due to certain physiological 

 conditions induced by environmental phenomenon. Seasonal 

 vicissitudes of unusual stress may be considered as factors in 

 the production of unusual forms, which in all probability re- 

 vert to the type-form when causative factors cease to operate. 

 Some forms are due to mechanical interference, as when lar- 

 vae are forced to pupate in places that do not offer sufficient 

 space, for instance, where the cell is short so that the pre- 

 pupal and pupal stages are under flection stress. It is a ques- 

 tion of mechanics. 



