Vrof. Frey, and some American Teneina. 195 



any of our lady readers, we advise tliem to collect a lot of mined leaves 

 from a variety of plants, assort them, and place each different kind of 

 mine in a separate, small glass jar, keeping the jar closed, so as to keep 

 the leaves fresh as long as possible, and await patiently, say a week or 

 two, for the moths to emerge ; then place an empty glass jar over the 

 first one, so that the moths will run or fly up into it ; close them up 

 in it, and kill them with the fumes of a few drops of chloroform, being 

 careful all the while not to injure them by rubbing off the scales which 

 clothe them, and then examine them with the lens, or microscope, as 

 before mentioned, and if I have exaggerated their beauty, why, it will 

 be nothing more than other men have done for the "lady reader" afore- 

 said, many a time before. 



But what has all this to do with the Zurich Professor ? Why, this 

 much : It has served to introduce to your acquaintance the 3f{cro-Lepi- 

 (loptera, as if you will but study the few species mentioned below, you 

 will be enabled to judge whether the "American colleagues," as the 

 Professor calls them (i. e., Dr. Brackenridge, Clemens, late of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and your humble servant, the writer), have been guilty of the 

 sins of omission and commission with which he charges us, or vice 

 versa. 



Prof. Frey, of Zurich, and Mr. J. Boll, of Bauragarten, have lately 

 issued a little brochure on some of the Micro- Lepldoptera of the United 

 States, which seems to call for some notice at the hands of students of 

 this group, in this country. The part of Mr. Ball in the matter 

 appears to have been confined to collecting insects with their mines 

 and larvse, with information as to their localities, habits, food, etc., 

 and it seems to have been well performed. The descriptions of species 

 and criticisms upon the work of others are evidently from the pen of 

 Prof. Frey, and to him the praise or blame attaches so far as praise 

 or blame are due for the brochure now before us. 



It appears from an introductory notice that a large collection of the 

 rained leaves of differerent species of plants, from the vicinity of Cam- 

 bridge, Massachusetts, was made by Mr, Boll, in the fall of 1872; but 

 unfortunate private events caused Mr. Boll to return to Switzerland in 

 the same winter, '* in stormy haste," as the Professor tells us, so that he 

 could not assort the material, but was compelled to jumble together 

 the mixed mass of leaves of various kinds ; and, as any one accustomed 

 to rearing Micro-Lepidoptcra knows, very little that was satisfactory 

 could result therefrom, for most of the larvse would fail to come to 

 maturity, and of those that did, very little could be learned, as to the 

 food-plant mine and larvse. What the species were which Prof. Frey 

 succeeded in describing will be mentioned further on. 



