126 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



at the same time that the specimens with the additional spot inconspicu- 

 ous were of much more frequent occurrence than the others, thus proving 

 that Say also found the second the most numerous form, as I have shown 

 to be the case out of forty-nine specimens taken last summer, in the table 

 just referred to. That it was more numerous than his second variety, now 

 to be given, we shall see to be evident, as the latter was probably described 

 from one specimen, the form being very rare. 



" Var. b. Each elytron with a single marginal spot, the two posterior 

 ones wanting." 



This description coincides exactly with that of the two-spotted speci- 

 men taken by Mr. Harrington (whose words upon this variety I have 

 already quoted. Can. Ent., xv., 207). I notice that Mr. Harrington very 

 kindly records having since found that his specimen, beheved to be only 

 two-spotted, has also rudiments of the posterior spots (Can. Ent. xv., 

 239), which, however, makes it none the less interesting a form. It is not 

 impossible that Say may have overlooked the very rudimentary dots which 

 his var. b perhaps possessed, since in many cases they are perfectly indis- 

 tinguishable without a glass, unless the elytra be opened and held up to 

 the light. Though his specimen may not have had the rudiments of the 

 same spots as Mr. Harrington's possesses, still, from the markings at once 

 discernible upon both, the two may without impropriety be said to be the 

 same. Speaking further of this variety, Say tells us that it was brought 

 by Mr. Thomas Nuttall from the banks of the Missouri, above the con- 

 fluence of the Platte, the region which produced many of his species of 

 Cicindela. Thus we find that the present form has occurred in two dis- 

 tinct and widely separated locahties : near Ottawa, Ont. (Mr. W. H. Har- 

 rington, latter part of May, 1881, Can. Ent. xiv., 8) in the great St. 

 Lawrence Basin ; and many years before that up the banks of the Mis- 

 souri, which river constitutes the western portion of the great Mississippi 

 System. We may notice also that in each case the locality of occurrence 

 was situated upon the opposite side from that upon which the other great 

 river system bordered, and at about the centre of farthest removal from 

 it. This proves without a doubt that the variations are wide-spread. 



But we have yet another early record upon the subject. In Harris' 

 Entomological Correspondence there is a letter in which Hentz wrote to 

 Harris the following from Northampton, Jan. i, 1826 : — 



" Cicindela sexgicttata I have frequently observed, and have many 

 accidental varieties. The color varies from a deep blue to a bright green. 



