236 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



possessing more analogies with the species associated in his genus Pa- 

 «tfr/«;, [*J than with any other insects, and accordingly arranged it with 

 them, bestowing upon it the specific name hycmalis. But, inasmuch as it 

 differed from the Panorpidsein some prominent particulars, such as pos- 

 sessing the faculty of leaping, and being furnished with an ovipositor simi- 

 lar to many grasshoppers and crickets, Panzer, at a subsequent day, placed 

 it under the genus Gryllus. More recent naturalists, however, have con- 

 curred in the propriety of the location originally given by Linnaeus, and 

 to obviate, in some degree, the incongruity of its situation, Latreille 

 was induced to construct for it an independent genus, placed beside Pan- 

 orpa, to which genus he gave the name Boreus. The hyemalis has re- 

 mained to this day the sole species of this genus, no other insect having 

 similar characters, having been discovered in any part of the world. Two 

 years since, in the month of March, searching carefully upon the melting 

 snow, to find if possible in this vicinity, a rare and singular insect which 

 has been lately discovered in Canada — the Chionea valga, a fly destitute 

 of wings — though unsuccessful, my labors were rewarded with an equally 

 acceptable return, an insect cogeneric with the curious Boreus hyemalis of 

 Europe. Since that time, I have met with numerous specimens, and have 

 also found in the same situations, several individuals of a third species 

 pertaining to the same genus. From these specimens I draw the follow- 

 ing detailed characters of the 



Genus BOREUS, Latreille. 



Polished and shining. Head sunk into the thorax to the eyes, which 

 are prominent ; ocelli wanting. Rostrum long-conical, twice or thrice as 

 long as the head from which it gradually tapers, projecting downwards at 

 rio-ht angles with the body, or more or less inclined backwards under the 

 breast, its front side clothed with minute hairs. Maxillary /«/// reaching 

 beyond the tip of the beak ; terminal joint longest and slightly thicker 

 than the others, long ovate ; basal joints cylindrical, half as long as they 

 are broad. Antenna inserted in the middle of the front, their bases nearer 

 to the margin of the eyes than to each other, reaching half the length of 

 the abdomen in the females and to its tip in the males, thickly set with 

 very short minute hairs; filiform, hardly thicker toward their tips, com- 

 posed of twenty-three joints ; two basal joints thickest, the first subcylin- 

 dric, the second obovate ; succeeding joints short-cylindric, compact; 

 terminal joint ovate. Thorax cylindrical, scarcely as broad as the head. 

 Wings, in the males, rudimentary and not adapted for flying. Upper pair 

 represented by two coriaceous pseud-elytral scales which reach rather 

 more than half the length of the abdomen ; these are broadest at their 

 base and gradually taper to an acute point, the length being over four 

 times as great as the breadth ; they are very convex above and concave 

 on their under sides, and thus when detached, bear some resemblance to 



[* Through a typographical error, the genus is given as Parpano?^ 



