carefully kept, and in due time they entered upon the pupa stage, en- 

 closing themselves in hard brown pear-shaped cocoons open at one end. 

 Unfortunately, however, the mature insects emerged last spring (1884), 

 while I was again in America, with the result that I am now only able to 

 exhibit two very dilapidated — instead of two very handsome — specimens 

 uf that local form or sub-species ol Platysamia Columbia which is peculiar 

 to the prairies of the Canadian Northwest, and which has very recently 

 , been named Platysamia columbia-nokomis by my friend ^ Mr. Brodie, of 

 Toronto, in accordance with the trinomial system of nomenclature so 

 general across the Atlantic. 



I have brought up for exhibition specimens of Ekagnus argeniea. 

 It will be observed that the leaves are of a very peculiar pale silvery green 

 color, quite unlike that of the leaves of most other shrubs. I have also 

 brought for exhibition a colored drawing of the full-grown larva of the 

 insect, made by my friend Mr. E. T. Seton, of Toronto. It is ob- 

 servable that the color of the larva exactly corresponds during life 

 with that of the leaves of the food-plant; and, as these themselves are of 

 an unusual color, I think it may be regarded as an obvious case of nat- 

 urally protective coloring. 



The total length of the larva is nearly three inches. The head is 

 yellow, with a few black spots; there are also four black spots on the first 

 segment of the body. The first three segments bear yellow clasping legs; 

 the next segment none; the next four bore slightly hairy legs of a light 

 yellowish color; the next segment none; and the last segment a pair of 

 vellow legs. The body bore many protuberances of different kinds, 

 covered with small black spikes. A row of spines down each side of the 

 back. These rows were about one-fourth of an inch apart. Along each 

 side of the body, and separated by the space of about one-fourth of an 

 inch, ran two more rows of spines, the pair on the tail segment showmg 

 a brighter blue than the rest. Below this row again there were spines 

 on the first five segments." 



It is interesting to know of this new variety of which we had been 

 hitherto ignorant; and it is equally interesting to learn that the trinomial 

 system is so general in America. In Entomology it has been confined 

 almost exclusively to gall insects, and P . columbia-nokomis is the only 

 lepidopterous insect so far as we can recollect, burdened with more than 

 one specific name — synonyms of course excluded. 



The North American Chrysididae, l)y "S. Frank Aaron, I'r. .Viucr. Km. Soc., 

 XII, pp. 209—248, pi. VI to X. 



Mr. Aaron describes the new genus Diplorr/ios, ami a large num[)er 

 of new species in the other genera of the family; giving synopses of the 



