THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 49 



parts. The under parts are generally of a deep green or bluish, irre- 

 spective of the insect's habitat. These colors do not show from 

 above. On this account many of the species seem to be more 

 brightly colored beneath than above, except in such cases as 

 afford the bright colors above a chance to assimilate with soils or foliage. 

 Yet the upper parts are really the more richly colored in all the species, 

 though they may not appear so to the causal eye. Here, in the coloration 

 of the upper parts of the Cicinde/ce, natural and sexual selection blend. 

 They act together at the same time upon the same parts. While sexual 

 selection produces beautiful tints, natural selection takes care that none 

 remain that will endanger the insects preservation by making it conspicu- 

 ous in its retreats. In this way colors, which otherwise would be prominent, 

 assume a general dull appearance, which will not arrest the eye. Life 

 is of primary value, but so also is beauty to the perpetuation of the 

 insect. While the upper parts retain the colors that will assimilate 

 well with their surroundings, sexual selection has given them tints, which 

 though in many cases seemingly dull to the eyes of man, are found 

 under a high lens to consist of the most lovely bronzed, purplish and 

 dazzling green reflections, in the entirety of which beauty the insects ap- 

 pear to themselves by virtue of their far superior sight development. 



LARVA OF SEIRODONTA BILINEATA, Pack. 



BY G. H. FRENCH, CARBONDALE, ILL. 



Length 1.20 inches ; cylindrical, rather slender, two warty elevations 

 on the dorsum of joints 5 and 12, elsewhere the piliferous spots scarcely 

 perceptible, except for the single hair that arises from each. Color green; 

 a dorsal pale yellow line, bordered on each side on joints 3 and 4 by a 

 purple line ; outside this a pale yellow stripe that diverges on joint 2, 

 gradually diverging again on joints 4, 5 and 6, where it reaches below the 

 usual region of the subdorsal line, extending from this back to joint 11, 

 from which it gradually converges to the elevations on joint 12, touching 

 these on the outside, the diverging and converging referring to the stripes 

 on both sides of the body. These stripes send more or less prominent 

 deflections down the sides of joints 7 and 10, In some examples the 

 space between these stripes and the dorsal line contains a pale whitish 

 stripe each side of the dorsal ; the deflections, and a little on joint 5 and 



