ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



AND 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SECTION 



ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA. 



VOL. XX. 



MARCH, 1909. 



No. 3. 



CONTENTS: 



Snodgrass The Thoracic Tergum of 



Insects 97 



Rehn The New Jersey Records of 



Hesperotettix brevipennis 'Thorn.) 104 

 Coquillett Rediscovery of the Bibionid 



genus Eupeitenus 106 



Fox A new species of Ceratophyllus . . 107 

 Ainslee The Manner of Attachment of 



Parasitized Aphids no 



Earth An Artificial Ant's Nest 113 



Hebard A few notes on December So. 



Georgia Orthoptera 115 



Herrick Notes on Contarinia sorghi- 



cola 1 16 



Gillette Two little-known Aphids on 



Carex sp 119 



Lovell The Bees of Massachusetts : 



Osmia and Sphecodes 122 



Viereck A new species of Andrena. . . 126 



Rowley-Another season with Catocalae 127 



Editorial 136 



Notes and News 137 



Doings of Societies 139 



The Thoracic Tergum of Insects. 

 By R. E. SNODGRASS. 



(PI. VI.) 



The idea that the hexapod thoracic tergum consists normally 

 of four transverse plates is now unfortunately a dogma of in- 

 sect morphology. Nearly all entomologists since Audouin 

 (1824) have construed the facts in some way so as to make 

 the thoracic terga of any particular insect conform with this 

 supposed general quadruple structure. Though a few authors 

 have expressed the opinion that a thorough study of the insect 

 thorax would not bear out this conception, yet Audouin's draw- 

 ings of the back of Dytiscits circumftexus have been copied over 

 and over again to illustrate the general structure of the insect 

 tergum. Two authors during the past century Chabrier 

 (1820) and Straus-Durckheim (1828) have been contented 

 with describing the back plates just as they exist. 



The object of the present writer is not to discredit Audouin, 

 but to discredit the notion that the back of an insect segment 

 is composed of four variously modified primitive transverse 

 elements. This notion is fast growing into the still more erron- 

 eous one that the entire segment is a compound of four meta- 

 meres. It is true that the great advancements of any science 



97 



