THE CANADIAN KNTOMOLOGIST. 143 



maple about loo yards away. The other two males were taken on 25th 

 June. 



None of the insects were seen in 1887, although carefully looked for 

 in that locality, but during the past season they were again observed upon 

 a different kind of tree and in a different locality. On loth June, Mr. 

 Fletcher captured two females ovipositing in a beech, and on the 24th 

 June, while with him we each took a female upon beech trees in the same 

 grove. That taken by myself was dead, having met with an accident 

 while ovipositing. 



Having thus recorded the dates of capture of the, specimens coming 

 under my observation, a few remarks may be made upon the manner of 

 oviposition. When the ovipositor is not in use it forms a complete coil 

 within the abdomen, which is really but a flat sheath to contain it, and 

 so transparent that it is perfectly visible. The triangular ventral scale, 

 which is the full length of the abdomen, closes into it like a knife-blade 

 into its handle, and the ovipositor is completely protected. When the 

 ventral scale is deflexed the abdomen has much the outline of a lobster's 

 claw, and the ovipositor when protruded is seen to be fully an inch in 

 length, or longer than the insect itself. 



During the act of oviposition, the insect, by means of its long legs, 

 keeps its body far enough from the surface of the tree to enable it to deflex 

 the ventral scale at a right angle to the body, with the tip touching the 

 bark. A perfect support is thus formed for the ovipositor, which is 

 gradually worked into the tree in much the same manner as that of 

 Thalessa. 



All the insects observed ovipositing have been on the trunks of large 

 trees, at an average distance of about two feet from the ground, The six 

 individuals seen in 1883 and 1886 were all upon old maples, near Hull, 

 on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river. The trees were old and rapidly 

 decaying (in two instances already dead), having a diameter of nearly 

 two feet, and with the bark proportionately thick, so that the ovipositor was 

 none too long to reach the wood, unless the insect availed itself of crevices 

 in the bark, The insects taken last June were all ovipositing upon large 

 beeches in a grove within the city limits, and within a few minutes' walk 

 of my own house. J\Ir. Fletcher informs me that each of those captured 

 by him had the ovipositor deeply inserted, and that he had much difficulty 

 in pulling it out — breaking it, indeed, in one instance. My own specimen, 



