18%.] 221 



marks, white. External bases of mandibles white or whitisli. Scape yellowish on 

 one side, flagellum dull orange beneath. Checks hairy. Mesothorax minutely 

 rugulose but shiny, with short white hairs ; metathorax shiny, nude, except the fringe 

 of hairs at the side. Tubercles and hind border of prothorax with a very little 

 white. Tegulse very pale. Wings hyaline, iridescent. Nervures and stigma 

 colourless, 3rd discoidal distinct, marginal cell with the substigmatal portion about 

 as long as, or a little longer than, the poststigmatal. A stripe on anterior tibia? in 

 front, and all the tarsi entirely, white. Abdomen piceous, with interrupted white 

 bands on segments 2 to 4, that on 4 reduced to a couple of small streaks. Pygidiura 

 orange. Venter piceous. 



Hah. : on Aster spinosus, Mesilla, New Mexico, June 21th, IS90. 



In Proc. Phila. Acad., 1S96, p. 38, I remarked that A. spinosus 

 had produced no Perdita. Whether the present insect is attached 

 especially to that plant, or merely a stray from some other, may be 

 doubtful, as repeated sweepings failed to bring to light more than a 

 single specimen. 



In my table of Ferdita (t. c.) this will fall next to pectidis, from 

 wlaicb it will easily be known by the white clypeus, the straight instead 

 of oblique abdominal marks, &c. 



I had asked myself whether this might be the unknown ? of P. 

 erigeronis, but it differs from that species by its white instead of yellow 

 marks, its clear wings with the nervures not dark, its much more shiny 

 mesothorax, and its shiny front, the front in erigeronis being dull. 



Mesilla, New Mexico, U. S. A. : 

 July, 1896. 



GUM ARABIC versus TRAGACANTH FOR CARDING INSECTS. 

 BY G. C. CHAMPrON, F.Z.S. 



Why do many of our British Entomologists use tragacanth for 

 carding small Coleoptera, Hemiptera, &c., in pz'eference to any other 

 gum? The insoluble property of this " detestable material," as Mr. 

 Blandford aptly describes it,* is so well known that it is needless to 

 speak of it here. Some of us who have had to relax large numbers 

 of fragile specimens that have been mounted with tragacanth have 

 seen the error of our way and abandoned the use of it long ago. Is 

 it necessary that the British Coleopterist or Hemipterist should have 

 a method of his own, like the British Lepidopterist, to distinguish his 

 specimens from continental ones? Neither continental nor American 

 Entomologists use tragacanth, though the Englishman abroad may do 

 so. If some of our rising Entomologists cannot be persuaded to 



* Ent. Mo. Mag,, xxxii, p. 63. 



