l8 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., 'lO 



later to have been well founded, it is clear to me that no 

 acknowledgment is due. In the present case I am the more 

 disinclined to make any mention of Dr. Smith in the matter, 

 even to state that he expressed a favorable prognosis, because 

 he was injected into a situation which I considered well in 

 hand, quite without my previous knowledge or desire. 



Dr. Smith states that all the information about Ulansonia 

 pertnrbans comes from himself or his assistant, Air. Gross- 

 beck. This is a most disingenuous statement. I happen to 

 know that Air. Brakeley made all the discoveries in the case 

 and sent his voluminous notes freely to Dr. Smith, and I am 

 astonished that Dr. Smith should attempt to divert credit to 

 himself from a most generous and warm-hearted, if non-pub- 

 lishing, friend. For myself, who am neither generous, nor. 

 I fear, at present particularly friendly toward Dr. Smith, the 

 attempt to annex credit is explicable on the ground that Dr. 

 Smith's point of view is too self-centered to allow him to read 

 the situation in its true aspect. 



Note on the Genus Phalaecus Stal. 



By Dr. E. BERGROTH, Fitchburg, Mass. 



In 1773 De Geer described and figured a large and remark- 

 able Pentatomid from Surinam under the name Cimcx 

 pnstulatiis. Overlooking De Geer's description Stal describ- 

 ed in 1855 a specimen of the same insect from an unknown lo- 

 cality under the name Macropygium flavopustulatum. Later, 

 in 1862, he found that the species has only a superficial resem- 

 blance to the genus Macropygium and founded the new genus 

 Plmlaccus upon it. identifying it with De Greer's species. In 

 1872 he published some additional characters of the genus, 

 among others "tarsi biarticulati ?" This note of interrogation 

 seems to indicate that his specimen was in poor condition, for 

 the tarsi are really only two- jointed and very distinctly so. Up 

 to the present date no more specimens of this rare insect had 

 turned up, but in 1880 Distant described and figured from 

 Central America what he considered a new species of Phalac- 



