THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 21 



In from seven to twenty-five minutes the birth is accomplished, and 

 you have before you a perfect counterpart of the parent, quickly swimming 

 free and ready for a meal. At birth the insect is about five mm. long by 

 two and a half mm. broad, of the purest white, rapidly changing to light 

 straw-yellow and brown, and in two or three hours at most they are the 



same colour as the parent, and if prey be not abundant, very likely feasting 

 on their younger brothers and sisters. This latter trait is evidently an 

 hereditary one, because the parent very often makes a meal off his own 

 offspring. 



I noticed one peculiar thing in regard to the birth of these insects, 

 and that was, when the birth was forcibly terminated by my assistance they 

 were not properly vivified. They would lie for many minutes apparently 

 half dead, whereas those that were maturely born were lively and perfectly 

 vivified. Nature's ways are marvellous, and the birth of an insect is just 

 as elaborately provided for as that of the higher animals. 



These creatures disdain nothing in the food line that they can handle, 

 either dead or alive. They often come to the surface for floating insects, 

 worms, caterpillars, moths, butterflies, dragon-flies, grasshoppers, crickets, 

 etc., etc., and after extracting all the nourishing properties by suction, cast 

 the empty skin aside. 



Their migrations are performed after night, as is the habit of the 

 so-called " electric-light bug." 



So far I have discovered but two species of this insect, one inhabiting 

 the warmer zones of California and countries further south, and which I 

 have described in this article, and a smaller variety that inhabits the warm 

 springs of Northern California, and which is hardly half the size of the one 

 here reported. 



PREOCCUPIED NAMES OF BEES. 



Through the kindness of Prof. Cockerell I have learned that two 

 names recently used by me are preoccupied, and therefore propose the 

 following : 



Centris Costaricefisis, n. n,, for C. Friesei, Cwfd., in Trans. Am. Ent. 

 Soc, XXXII, 158. 



Halidus glabrivent)is,\\. w.^iox H. Vachali, Cwfd., in Can. Ent., 

 XXXVIII, 300. J. C. Crawford, Dallas, Texas, 



