256 Journal New York Entomological Society. t VoL xxvii. 



pubesccns, while the other does not. Then he states that the apex 

 of the head is " strongly recurved." By this reference is doubtless 

 made to the clypeus, which again agrees with but one of our green 

 species. From the foregoing it would seem possible to determine to 

 which of our very similar green female Ophidermas the name flava 

 Godg. is applicable. 



But still another difficulty is encountered, and that has to do with 

 the male of this species. Female specimens seem to be present in 

 almost all the collections to which I have succeeded in gaining access, 

 but in none of them, nor of those with whose owners or custodians 

 I have consulted, is a male specimen of Ophiderma assigned to flava. 

 Dr. Goding in his original description of the species stated that it 

 was based on " one male received from Mr. Westcott and one female 

 from Dr. Riley," thus indicating that he found no difference between 

 them other than in the genital organs ; and all subsequent papers on 

 the genus have perpetuated this inference. But as my collecting had 

 likewise failed to discover a green male, and as in a closely allied 

 species of which I had taken several examples of both sexes in asso- 

 ciation and at least two pairs in copula, a species I purpose to de- 

 scribe in this paper, the male is dissimilar in color from the female, 

 which on its part corresponds in color and fairly well in other respects 

 with that covered by Dr. Goding's description in question, I was led 

 to write him asking that he again examine his " types " with respect 

 to their sex. After very considerable delay I am now in receipt of 

 a letter from him from Ecuador, in which he writes : " Westcott's 

 example female, error due to mounting on a card which more or less 

 covered genital organs." That confirms my suspicion that the male 

 of flava has not yet been recognized. May it not be that in reliance 

 upon the published description of the male and female as alike, our 

 students and collectors, while finding the female of flava and cor- 

 rectly assigning it to that species, have failed to recognize a totally 

 differently colored insect of the opposite sex as being of the same 

 species ? In my own collection I have long had a male Ophiderma, 

 which did not accord with any published description, pinned above 

 my rows of flava females. It was so placed because I more than sus- 

 pected that the male flava was not green, because in size and struc- 

 ture it exhibited characters that would be looked for in the male of 

 such an Ophiderma as is the female flava, because in color pattern 



