316 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [December, 



men of a $ var. jamaicensis, good in color and only tips of wings gone. 

 I have since thought that this imago may have been the result of some 

 of those escaped larvae, because it is a small <j\ similar to those obtained 

 from ill-fed larvae. This illustrates how careful one ought to be before 

 discarding a common insect. Dr. RICHARD E. KUNZE. 



ENTOMOLOGY IN FLORICULTURE. Landscape gardener, Mr. William 

 Nilsson, of Woodlawn, New York City, requested information whether 

 he could copy a Lepidoptera successfully for one of his lawn beds oppo- 

 site the station of the N. Y. and H. R. R. It is near the entrance to 

 Woodlawn Cemetery. Looking over his plants I found material to make 

 a fine Attacus luna (j\ and furnished the artist with a large, flown insect, 

 taken at electric light and richly colored. July ist, this year, I took a 

 train for Mount Vernon, N. Y., and noticed as we speeded past the station 

 that he had executed a perfectly symmetrical luna, true to color and form. 

 Early in October, when plants were in richest appearance, I made a trip 

 to personally inspect this luna in front of the green-houses. For the 

 benefit of others interested in such decorations I now furnish the names 

 of plants used : Wings consisted of Echeveria mexicana. Body and 

 four lunulate wing spots were made with Echeveria glauca. Shadings 

 of the moons represented Alternanthera amazna, of lovely pink tint, 

 which plant was also used for costa of superior wings. Antennae repre- 

 sented by Kleinia spec, (which I take to be Hazvorthii], and perfect as 

 to color and form, so that its succulent, short, cylindrical leaves exactly 

 resemble the bi-pectinate male antennae. The circular bed, fifteen feet in 

 diameter, contains a luna of about thirteen and a half feet of spread of 

 wings. The moth is surrounded by the purplish red Alternanthera ver- 

 sicolor, complementary in color and harmonizing with central figure. 

 Surrounding all is a single row of Echeveria glauca. To those unac- 

 quainted with plants, will state that the latter are fleshy, rosette-like, 

 having green leaves. Dr. RICHARD E. KUNZE. 



EXPERIMENTING WITH FIREFLIES. One of the prettiest sights of a 

 Summer evening in the country is a meadow covered with a swarm of 

 flitting fireflies. Many intensely practical people have laughed at any 

 suggestion that this firefly light could be utilized in any way by man. Yet 

 scientists have long been at work on the problem, and one of the number, 

 Secretary Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, has arrived at some 

 startling conclusions. The light shed by these little insects is the most 

 ecomical illuminant in the worid. It has no waste and no overrunning 

 meter. Moreover, it is one hundred times as cheap as gas, which means 

 that one pays a dollar for a cent's worth of light, and even with electricity 

 the waste is enormous. With the firefly there is no waste by the production 

 of heat. 



This may seem rather strange to those who inseparably connect a light 

 with some degree of heat manifestation, and this " cold light," if such it 

 might be called, would be peculiarly adapted to a hot Summer evening. 



