TIIE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 19 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

 Parsnip Larva. — Mr. James Angus, of West Farms, N. Y., writes as 

 follows respecting our notice of this insect in the last number of the Canadian 

 Entomologist. " I am pleased with your description of the Parsnip Depres- 

 saria; it is an old acquaintance of mine. I have raised the larva? and noticed 

 their habits for many years. It seems to be very closely allied to, if not 

 identical with, a British species, D. herach'ana, an abdomenless specimen of 

 which I have in my collection." On again comparing our specimens with 

 the brief descriptions in Stainton's Manual, we notice a great resemblance 

 to that of D. lieracliana, which had not struck us before. It is not at all 

 unlikely that our species is an imported insect, like a great many more of 

 the farmers' and gardeners' worst pests. We shall take an early opportunity 

 of sending some of our specimens to England in order to have the question 

 settled, and should the insect prove to be a British species we shall gladly 

 withdraw the name that we have given it. We have no desire to multiply 

 names or synonyms, which are becoming such a nuisance to Entomologists, 

 but being unable to identify our insect from any description that we had 

 access to, we determined — with some hesitation — to give it a name which 

 could easily be withdrawn if the species proved not to be a new one. 



Larva of Hyperchiria varia, Walk. — On the 25th of July last, I 

 found closely huddled together on the underside of a Locust leaf (Robnita 

 pseudacacia, L.) a cluster of fifteen small bristly caterpillars, of a dark brown 

 colour. On opening the chip box in which they were confined, some hours 

 after their capture, I found them ranged in a single line obliquely up and 

 down its sides; when disturbed they set off in procession round and round 

 the box following their leader in a most grotesque manner. After this when- 

 ever I looked at them, till they became very large, they were always either 

 ranged in a single column, or very closely huddled together. By and by they 

 became so large that the line of fifteen exactly measured the inner circum- 

 ference of the box, and then, by dint of a little persuasion. I got them to 

 form an endless procession around the inside of the box, each one following 

 closely the individual before him. They went on in this way for upwards of 

 half an hour, and looked as if they would have gone on for ever, till I thought 

 they had had exercise enough and broke up the column. At this time their 

 length was 0.35 inch; their general colour black; body entirely covered 

 with long sharp compound black spines, so thickly branched on every side 

 as to form a complete chevaux de /rise — the terminal spinelets ended in a 

 fine hair, the main stem being jet black, the side branches white tipped with 

 black j along the sides there was a reddish-white line, and another of the same 

 colour through the spiracles. In other specimens the two lateral lines and the 

 space between them formed together a band of reddish-white. 



