NO, 2037. NORTH AMERICAN SPRING-TAILS— FOLSOM. 459 



gami d'une frange de polls noirs et courts; antennes grises, ou d'un gris fauve; pattes 

 d'un brun verdatre, tarses bruns, ventre jaunatre. Cette esp^ce, ainsi que la pr6c6- 

 deute, se trouve sous les pierres et le vieux bois. 



This description is so broad as to have scarcely any specific value. 

 The expression "wax-yellow" has, however, been seized upon by 

 "priority-hunters" as an excuse to drop the name Jlavescens in favor 

 of niger. 



Agren ('03, p. 145) believed that the name jlavescens should be 

 retained, but nevertheless proposed a still earlier name, plumhea 

 Templeton, since Templeton ('35, p. 93) described Podura pluinhea 

 as having a golden yellow body color. Now at least four other 

 writers have followed Agren and adopted the name plumhea, though 

 Templeton's description is so vague that previous authorities had 

 agreed in rejecting it. 



As a matter of fact, Jlavescens is not the only European species of 

 Tomocerus with a clear yellow body color. T. vulgaris is often bright 

 yellow, so that Schott ('94, p. 41) thought it most probable that 

 vulgaris was the species named niger by Bourlet. T. tridentiferus 

 Tullberg is also sometimes yellow, as Carpenter and Evans ('99, 

 p. 237) have noted; and T. sihiricus Axelson is characteristically 

 bright yellow. 



In fact, yellow is the basis of the body color in many species of 

 Tomocerus, and the body color is so variable as to be of little specific 

 importance, as Brook ('83, p. 23) showed long ago. 



The only justifiable course is to retain the nsime Jlavescens Tullberg. 



The specimens of Tomocerus that I determined for Banta ('07 

 p. 55) Sire Jlavescens Tullberg, var. americanus and var. separatus. 



The specimens that Packard ('73, p. 38) referred to T. plumheus 

 Linneeus belong to two species: vulgaris Tullberg and Jlavescens 

 Tullberg. These specimens are in the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I studied them. Of 

 those labeled "Brunswick, Me., Sept. 10, A. S. P.," four are Jlavescens; 

 "Salem, Mass., A. S. P.," six Jlavescens; "Knoxville, Tenn., Dr. J. 

 Curtis," 136 Jlavescens. All these specimens of Packard's are of the 

 common tridentate form that I call separatus to distinguish it from 

 the typical bidentate form of Tullberg's description. 



Distribution. — The typical bidentate form oi Jlavescens, as described 

 by Tullberg, is rare but widely distributed in this country, so far as 

 I can infer from the material I have studied. The following are the 

 only records that I have of its occurrence: 



Illinois. — Urbana, March 19. 



Tennessee. — Knoxville, April 5, H. E. Summers. 



California. — V. L. Kellogg (Stanford University, J. W. F.). 

 Washington. — V. L. Kellogg, L. Bremner (Stanford University, 

 J. W. F.). 



In most parts of Europe T. Jlavescens is a common species. 



