510 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, 



vegetation, covers the spot so completely that few persons know of its 

 existence. Here the "Kentucky Warbler" (O. formosa) and the 

 "White-browed Warbler" (D. dominica albilora] find an unmolested 

 nesting place. I have taken many rare insects of all orders here, partic- 

 ularly Coleoptera. May u, 1900, while searching for minute beetles I 

 lifted the loose bark from a freshly fallen oak log and found a colony of 

 Stenoinimus pallidus that contained hundreds of this beetle. I picked 

 out 120 in a few minutes. I have never before taken this curious little 

 weevil, which is one of the smallest North American species. It is very 

 slender in form and of pale brown color and might easily be mistaken for 

 Bactridium, which was associated with it. Its larvae had eaten galleries 

 through the decaying fibres of the inner bark CHARLES DURY, Cincin- 

 nati, Ohio. 



NEW LIGHT ON THE BEE-GENERA MEGACILISSA AND MACROTERA. 

 I have just received the following important information from Mr. W. F. 

 Kirby of the British Museum: " Megadlissa supcrba Smith is a Chilian 

 species, and - = Caupolicana fulvicollis Spin. Mr. Waterhouse and I 

 have carefully examined Perdita halictoides and Macrotera bico/orSm\\\\ f 

 and find that Smith's drawings of the dissections are quite accurate ; and 

 that although Smith says the palpi of Perdita are wanting, and there is 

 no trace of them in the specimen, yet they are included in his own figures, 

 which is very odd. I find that Macrotera was obtained from Mr. E. P. 

 Coffin in 1843, but I do not know from what part of Mexico. Perhaps 

 this might be discovered by hunting through Westwood's publications." 



This shows that Megadlissa is a pure synonym of Caupolicana, as was 

 suggested in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec., 1899, p. 412.* It also confines 

 the distinctness of Macrotera from Macroteropsis and Hypomacrotera, 

 As for Perdita, Smith's figures of the palpi are drawn with dotted lines, 

 and are undoubtedly hypothetical. Under the circumstances set forth in 

 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec., 1899, p. 315, it is evident that we shall for 

 the present have to remain wholly uncertain as to what is genuine 

 Perdita. T. D. A. COCKERELL, Mesilla Park, N. M., Feb. 2, 1900. 



A BEE-FLY FOUR YEARS IN THE LARVAL STATE. Is THIS A RI;CORD? 

 In Volume I, Part 3, of the Proceedings of the Southern California 

 Academy of Sciences may be found a short descriptive article on the 

 habits and parasites of one of the most interesting bees of California, 

 Authophora montana Cress. Its interesting habit of tower building is 

 there illustrated and need not be further commented upon. Antho- 

 p/iont inoufaiia, like many other species of mining bees, live in colonies, 

 and may be found year after year occupying the same spot of ground. 

 Each season the old shafts are cleaned out or new ones are sunk till the 

 earth when turned over seems to be but a mass of clay cells of all ages. 



On the i5th day of July, 1895, I unearthed a number of cells of A. inon- 



- Mi'gacillissa yarrowi Cresson, 1875, will become Caupolicana yarrowi; but !/. thora- 

 cica, Fox, and allied species, may have to be separated generically. 



