THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 59 



woods, especially in moist hollows; August, 1S78, he found the beetles 

 quite common, and in fact injuring the roots of ash trees in Babylon, 

 L. I. Miss Emily L. Morton, Newburgh, N. J., states the frequent occur- 

 rence of X. satyrus on Long Island at various places, but has never seen 

 a specimen of it taken in her own collecting grounds, New Windsor, N. 

 Y., or vicinity. I have never made any lists of the distribution of insects 

 except, of course, for some orders which belong to my special studies ; 

 but I have many times missed such a reference list for Coleoptera. I have 

 been now informed that such a list is in the way of preparation. Even if 

 I had time enough to undertake such a large work, 1 would have been 

 prevented from doing it for a certain reason. If local lists should be taken 

 as a basis for such a reference list of N. Am., it would be necessary to 

 assume that the determinations of the species are unquestionable. That 

 this is not the case in some lists of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, I have 

 been shown by s]>ecialists. Therefore if such a reference list should be 

 of value, it must be worked by specialists who are able to control care- 

 fully the determinations. As in my large correspondence I am often asked 

 to give information of the occurrence of species in certain localities, my 

 way to answer these queries is to consult the collections in my care. So 

 for beetles, the N. A. collection formed out of the collections of Mel- 

 sheimer, Ziegler, Lewis, A. Agassiz, and all other beetles, formerly belong- 

 ing to the Museum. Further, die collections of Dr. LeConte, Lt. Casey, 

 and of the Peabody Academy, the two latter ones now belonging to the 

 Museum ; and finally of the general collection. If the result is not suffi- 

 cient, I would like to apply to the knowledge of specialists, and the prompt 

 answers now given will mostly settle the question. I should add that 

 at least for Lepidoptera, I did begin the arrangement of the collection in 

 a way to form a reference list, in placing a specimen of every State and 

 of other important localities in the boxes, to have, a graphical view of the 

 distribution of each species. I have retained for this purpose specimens 

 often in a very bad condition. But this plan, by which sometimes a whole 

 box was needed for one species, outgrew the given limits of space. Never- 

 theless, for Odonata and some other families belonging to my specialty, I 

 still retain this arrangement, which has given for some species of large 

 distribution two closely filled boxes, and even more. When such species 

 are studied and finally outworked, it will be of course possible to diminish 

 the number of specimens. It would be an error to believe that I could 

 do all this myself. My intention is to bring all specimens present in the 



