228 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



but little from its European congeners. Prof. Riley has made some 

 observations on Epicauta vittata. He describes the eggs of vittata as 

 follows : Length 0.08 inch, five times as long as wide, elliptical and so 

 uniform in diameter that it is difficult to say which is the anterior end, 

 though there is a slight difference. Egg sometimes very slightly curved. 

 Color very pale whitish yellow, smooth and shining. 



The young larva is yellowish-brow T n, borders of head and thorax and 

 of joints somewhat more dusky than general surface ; tip of jaws and 

 eyes dark brown. Legs and venter paler • venter not corneus except at 

 sides and across segments eleven and twelve. About ten stiff hairs visible 

 superiorly on the posterior border on the middle segments, with a cone- 

 like prominence at the base of each and six minor bristles in front of 

 them. There are also rows of fainter ventral bristles. 



The curious history of these insects throws some light on the fact that 

 while in some localities they are enormously abundant one season, they 

 will be very scarce another. It is to be expected that there would be an 

 alternation between the abundance of certain species of hymenopterous 

 insects and Cantharides. When the insects they prey on are abundant 

 the blistering beetles multiply amazingly, and during this immense multi- 

 plication exhaust the stock of material on which they feed to such an 

 extent that a year of great abundance in any given locality can scarcely 

 fail to be followed by a season of corresponding scarcity. In other, and 

 sometimes adjacent localities, where the same causes have not operated 

 to a like extent, the insects may be common enough. The great abund- 

 ance of the sociable and solitary bees in the great plains of the West will 

 probably always afford food sufficient to admit of the maturing of large 

 broods of Cantharides. 



AGENCY FOR THE EXCHANGE AND SALE OF COLEOPTERA. 



Mr. E. P. Austin, of Cambridge, Mass., has established an agency for 

 the exchange and sale of Coleoptera. Parties having Coleoptera which 

 they desire to dispose of, either in exchange for other species or for cash, 

 should write Mr. Austin. 



