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Notes and News 



In the Vol. of the Stettiner Entomologische Zeitschrift for 1884, 

 which has just come to hand, we note that our good friend Dr. Horn 

 has also been elected honorary member of that society. It gives another 

 proof of the high standing Dr. Horn has made for himself. 



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Early this spring I found under the bark of a tree a specimen of 

 Coptocycla aurichalcea as bright and glittering as ever a specimen I saw in 

 life. It was perfectly dry, and a mere shell and had evidently been dead 

 a long time. In no collections I have ever seen, have I found any speci- 

 mens at all approaching the living insect in beauty. I mentioned this 

 to Drs. Hagen and Horn, at Cambridge, recently, and Dr. Horn says 

 both Dr. Leconte and himself had tried in every way to restore or pre- 

 serve the color of this insect, without success: he suggests that the living 

 insects be confined, kept perfectly dry, and allowed to die of starvation 

 and possibly in that way fine cabinet specimens might be obtained. Dr. 

 Hagen says that a drop of Glycerine under the elytra preserved their 

 lustre for some time but eventually they became dull. Will our Coleop- 

 terological friends try their hands at this during the coming season and 



report success? 



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In Can. Ent. XVI p. 131, Miss Murtfeldt gavesomenotes on "Attacus 

 cinctus, Tepper". In Mrs. Fernald's collection I saw recently, a pair of 

 A. splendidus De Beauv. labelled A. cinctus, and received from Miss 

 Murtfeldt. The remarks in the Can. Ent. must therefore be considered 

 as notes on A. splendidus, the determination (credited to Prof. Riley by 

 the bye,) being erroneous. Splendidus is credited to our fauna in Mr. 

 Grote's list of 1882; but I have never seen a specimen from the U.S. and 

 do not remember having seen any note of its being found north of Mex- 

 ico. Still it is very likely that it will yet occur near the border. 



From cinctus the species is readily distinguished by the shape of the 

 transparent spots, which in splendidus take the form of an elongate tri- 

 angle, or arrow head, and extend to and sometimes cross the outer 

 median line: in cinctus on the contrary the spots are smaller, not regu- 

 larly triangular but more rounded; those of secondaries of an irregular 

 diamond shape: they never cross and rarely even touch the outer median 

 line. Other characters are not wanting to separate the species, but those 

 above mentioned are the most obvious. The error in determination was 

 a very natural one, as Mr. Tepper had but recently figured the species, 

 and a cursory comparison with the figure would indicate identity. 



