210 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



CONCERNING THE NOTONECTID^ AND SOME RECENT 



WRITERS ON HEMI.PTEROLOGY. 



BY J. R. DE LA TORRE BUENO, NEW YORK. 



These noles are called forth specifically by a paper in "La Feuille des 

 Jeunes Naturalistes" (Rennes)i by A. Delcourt, entitled "De la Ne'cessite 

 d'une Revision des Notonectes de France," but they lead naturally to 

 some considerations on recent work. 



M. Delcourt claims that a revision of French Notonectids is necessary, 



and not being familiar with his region, we will not dispute it, but when he 



develops his argument it becomes necessary to differ from him. He falls 



at once into the error which has lead astray more than one Hemipterist, 



namely : that colour alone is a sufficient character for the differentiation 



of species in water-bugs, when in all recent workg it is more often than not 



neglected. My own careful studies of the common and abundant North 



American JSFotonecta iindulata, Say, have made this plain to me, because 



here we have an insect covering a great range, and which is apt to differ 



greatly in series from one and the same pond, varying from a pure white 



to nearly black. But they are one and the sa?ne species. These colour 



variations in iVi glatica appear to trouble M. Delcourt very much. This, 



no doubt, is due to his unfamiliarity with any work later than Dr. Pulon's 



very meritorious "Synopsis des Hemipteres Heteropteres de France." It 



is naturally not to be expected that a French author should be posted on 



what is done on this side of the water. But why ignore Kirkaldy's 



"Revision of the Notonectidae'?3 In this the entire question of the 



synonymy of Nototied a glatica is gone into, and he indicates the different 



varieties into which the species may be differentiated, all this after a 



careful examination of the types, so this work may be considered nearly 



definite. And, further, the same author published recently '' Uber 



N'otonectide?i,'\ in which wherever corrections in his previous work were 



necessary he made them, thereby bringing to date his earlier "Revision." 



Had the French reviser been familiar with these two articles he would not 



have deemed it necessary to propose the work he contemplates, even 



going to the extent of promising a revision of Palaearctic forms ! 



As for the remainder of M. Belcourt's paper, once he departs from 

 the speculative and arrives at the concrete, it is not entirely valueless. 



1. No. 442, Aug. I, 1907, pp. 198-207. 



2. Cf. Montandon, Kirkaldy, Horvath, etc. 



3. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1894. 



4. Wien. Ent. Zeit. 



June, 1908 



