July, '08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 311 



the second stage. The occurrence of Aspidiotus forbcsi at 

 Albany at that early date throws a doubt which, so far as the 

 writer sees, cannot be removed, on the identity of Fitch's 

 circular is. Examination of the records showed that forbcsi is 

 a species well represented in New York, and that currant is 

 one of its food plants, and there is therefore a possibility, 

 slight though it may be, that Fitch's circularis may have been 

 forbcsi instead of ancyhis. 



The writer has made a careful examination of the larval 

 exuviae of specimens of forbcsi and ancylus, and is unable, 

 from the mutilated state of the Fitch specimen, to find any 

 grounds for assigning it definitely to one of these species as 

 against the other. In making the microscopic preparation of 

 Fitch's circularis the waxy secretion dissolved and disappeared, 

 and all that remains is the mutilated larval exuvium. If this 

 exuvium were of the second stage its identification would be 

 comparatively easy. As it stands, the problem must remain 

 an open one. That ancylus equals circularis the writer has lit- 

 tle doubt, but as long as there is a chance of error he does not 

 feel warranted in reducing Putnam's name to synonymy. There 

 is one good side to the case, however, and that is that Put- 

 nam's species must now always remain valid, and it certainly 

 would have been a pity to have robbed Putnam, who, if he had 

 lived, would doubtless have made a distinct name in science, of 

 his only species. 



There is one other Aspidiotus to which Fitch's specimen 

 might now apply, namely, Aspidiotus ostreaeformis Curtis. The 

 latter is, however, a European species, the presence of which 

 in this country was first determined in 1899, the evidence point- 

 ing to its introduction some eight or ten years earlier. Its con- 

 sideration in connection with circularis, therefore, may be dis- 

 missed. 



< ' 



PROF. W. M. WHEELER has been appointed to the professorship ol 

 economic entomology in the Graduate School of Applied Sciences in 

 Harvard University. We congratulate Dr. Wheeler and also the 

 University. He has also succeeded Dr. H. G. Dyar as editor of the 

 Journal of the New York Entomological Society. 



