200 Pi'of- Frcy^ and some American Teneina. 



constantly undergoing their metamorphoses, and one so-called brood 

 is larval, while at the same time another is pupal, and another in the 

 imago. It is altogether a matter of climate. Gracilaria (Parredopa) 

 robtniella,C[em. , ceases to mine only when the leaves fall, that is, in the 

 central States in October or November, but in Southern Louisiana 

 they may still be found feeding in December. 



But, leaving these general remarks," let us turu our attention 

 especially to the species which Prof. Frey has dealt with in this little 

 pamphlet, and to his fitness for the task which he has undertaken, of 

 describing intelligejitly, and identifying American lUicro-Lepidoptera, 

 and of criticising American laborers in the same field. He describes 

 four species of Gracilaria ; the first is G. superbifrontella, Clem., and, 

 wonderful to relate, Dr. Clemens has been guilty of so much brevity 

 in his description, that he has described the insect in all three of its 

 states, and its mine and food plant, in sixteen lines of coarse print, so 

 well that the Professor can not help recognizing it at a glance, where- 

 upon he devotes nearly twice as much space to confusing the subject 

 as Dr. Clemens did to making it clear. Prof. Frey then gives us a 

 characteristic description of a species under the name Gracilaria ele- 

 (jantella, Frey, with the correct statement, that none of Dr. Clemens' 

 species approach it ; but in which we recognize at once, on carefully 

 comparing his description with our specimens, Gracilaria Packardella, 

 Chamb., Canadian Entomologist, vol. iv., p. 27. 



The Professor gives this thu'd species the name Gracilaria mirabilis. I 

 am not satisfied about this species. Prof. Frey's descriptions, when com- 

 pared with specimens of G. geiella, Cham., Can. Ent., vol. vi. (described 

 erroneously as G. plantagini&ella, vol. iv., p. 10), indicate, so far as I 

 can understand the Professor's description, a close similarity, if not 

 identity, between the insects described by Prof. Frey and myself, at 

 least, as to the markings on the wings ; but the markings of the head 

 and its appendages seem to dift'er. Future investigations must settle 

 the matter as to whether mirabilis is a synonym for geiella. I am not 

 able to recognize in the Professor's fourth description any species 

 known to me — he calls it G. astericola, and states that it mines the 

 leaves and corymbs of Aster cordifolia, which siDecies and others of 

 aster are numerous in this locality ; but I have never found the leaves 

 of any of them mined by any insect except by Batatis matutella, Clem. 



Prof. Frey then gives a species of Coriscium, which, if I understand 

 his description, is certainly new. Dr. Clemens described no species of 

 this genus, and I have described but one, C. albanotella, a very hand- 

 some and singular oak-feeding species, and it is certainly (I think) 

 not Prof. Frey's C. Paradadoxum. 



