OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XIV. 1912. 189 



As far as Mr. Schwarz recollects, only the list of the Coleop- 

 tera was ever finished, and he has seen this manuscript in 

 the possession of Dr. Le Conte in the year 1878. However, 

 it has never been published and the manuscript is probably 

 still in the possession of Mrs. Le Conte. A small fraction of 

 a copy of this list of Coleoptera in the handwriting of Belfrage, 

 including the Carabidse and Dytiscidse, is still in the possession 

 of Mr. Schwarz. Belfrage w r as not in the habit of labeling 

 the specimens he sent to his correspondents; his peculiar and 

 neat way of pinning and mounting render the specimens 

 collected by him easily recognizable. Of the numerous let- 

 ters Belfrage received from his correspondents from all over 

 the world many are preserved in the National Museum. An 

 obituary note on Mr. Belfrage will be found in the American 

 Naturalist, 1883, p. 424. 



-The fourth paper was "Notes on Some Nearctic Mantis- 

 pidse," by Nathan Banks. 1 



In connection with his remarks, Mr. Banks exhibited a 

 new genus of Mantispidse from Australia which appears in 

 three striking color varieties. He also showed specimens of 

 a new thynnid wasp, and a new genus of Scoliidae from Arizona. 

 At the conclusion of the regular papers on the programme 

 President Quaintance called on Dr. C. S. Minot, of Cambridge, 

 Mass., who responded with a few remarks on the early New 

 England entomologists and related some very amusing anec- 

 dotes regarding Dr. Hagen. 



-Under Notes and Exhibition of Specimens Mr. Banks 

 exhibited a bottle of insects taken from a freshly painted house 

 and suggested that there was something in the color as well 

 as the odor that attracted them to it. 



Mr. Barber stated as his opinion that the so-called attraction 

 of painted surfaces is exaggerated. A more logical explana- 

 tion in most cases would give greater importance to the tem- 

 porary alighting and immediate continuance of flight in the 

 seasonal swarmings of many insects caught on adhesive sur- 

 faces. Different species behave differently; with some insects 

 the odor of paint will be attractive and with others repulsive. 



1 Published Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., xiv, 178, 1912. 



