THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. Il5 



Guenei (to avoid all further confusion and because Guenee's alteration is 

 unessential and merely covers a wrong identification) has been sent to 

 Europe as vidua of Abbot, either by Abbot or determined as after Abbot 

 by collectors in the Southern States at the commencement of the century 

 (1800). Abbot, I have said, figures probably what Guenee calls dcsperata. 

 But it is not essential to recover now this name of Abbot's. It was 

 applied at a time when black winged Catocal?e were a great rarity and 

 when the number of species now known was not guessed at. When we 

 know all the Southern forms ab ovo, then it is time enough to be certain 

 what Abbot meant by vidua. If my supposition that thereby he intended 

 our desperata turn out correct, later lepidopterists may make the change, 

 I call our Northern species dcsperata Guen., and Guenee's vidua, which 

 I have proved not to be Abbot's and have certainly identified, Guenei. 



HINTS ON COLLECTING HYMENOPTERA. 



' BY W. HAGUE HARRINGTON, OTTAWA. 



To have the specimens in a collection look well, and at the same time 

 be in a condition such as to render their examination as easy as possible, 

 it is necessary that they should be properly collected. The ordinary 

 cyanide bottles prepared either with plabter of Paris, or sawdust, which 

 are used for Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, do not furnish good specimens 

 of Hymenoptera, and those collected in alcohol are less satisfactory. I 

 have found the method advised by Dr. WiUiston (Psyche, vol. iv., p. 130) 

 for collecting Diptera, so satisfactory that I will quote a portion of his 

 description : — 



" I select several two-ounce, wide-mouthed bottles of the same form, 

 and carefully line the bottom and sides with a good quality of blotting 

 paper. Good firm corks are selected, which are interchangeable in the 

 different bottles ; in one of these corks a small hole is made, in which it 

 is better to fit a small metallic ferule ; a strip of blotting paper is than 

 coiled within this cavity, and it is over this that a few drops of a solution 

 of cyanide of potash is poured." 



For those wlio may not desire to keep on hand a solution of this 

 poison, I would suggest a modification of this method which I find very 



