238 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



with the rostrum and ovipositor excepting their tips, fulvous ; legs dull 

 fulvous. 



Length, male twelve-hundredths of an inch ; female, 0.15, or including 

 the ovipositor, 0.18. 



Head black, highly polished, glabrous. Eyes black. Rostrum fulvous 

 and feebly diaphanous, the mouth and palpi black. Antennae black, two 

 basal joints sometimes fulvous-brown. Thorax black on the sides, above 

 varying in color from dull fulvous to cinnamon-yellow, the basal half of 

 the prothorax being black. Abdometi black, brownish black, or dull ful- 

 vous-brown ; terminal segment fulvous or cinnamon-yellow, its hooks in 

 the males cinnamon-yellow, their tips and teeth black and highly polished; 

 ovipositor in the females diaphanous, fulvous, sometimes inclining to 

 rufous, black at its tip. Rudimentary wings cinnamon-yellow; in the 

 males often of a duller hue toward their tips; rudimentary inferior wings 

 in the males of the same color as the superior. Legs lurid-yellow and 

 sub-diaphanous, with a slender black annulus at each of their articula- 

 tions; three last joints of the tarsi wholly black. 



Closely allied to the B. hyemalis, which, however, appears from Ram- 

 bur's Neuroptera, the Penny Cyclopsedia, and the beautiful colored figure 

 in Westwood's Introduction, the only definite authorities to which I am 

 able to refer, to have the basal two-thirds of the antennae of a russet 

 color, and the rudimentary wings and the legs strongly inclining to red. 

 Our species presents no tinge of rufous, except sometimes in the ovi- 

 positor; and the antennae, black to their bases, is a decided distinctive 

 mark. 



This insect is by no means rare, being found upon the snow in forests 

 in warm days, so early as December, and becoming more common as the 

 season advances. I have met with it the most plentiful in April, when 

 there has been a fall of snow in the night, succeeded by a warm forenoon 

 of bright sunshine. Appearing so suddenly, in numbers, upon the clean, 

 dazzling white surface thus spread over the earth, at the first thought it 

 seems to be literally bred from the snow. I have not yet searched for it 

 in the moss of tree-trunks, but doubt not that like the European insect, 

 ours will also occur in this situation. When observed upon the snow, it 

 is almost always stationary ; and when approached by the hand, it com- 

 monly makes a leap, to the distance of a few inches only, its saltatory 

 powers appearing but feeble. 



2. BOREUS BRUMALIS. The Mid-Winter Boreus. 



Polished deep black-green; legs, antennae, rostrum, and ovipositor 

 black ; rudimentary wings brownish-black. 



Length, male o. 10; female 0.12, or including the ovipositor 0.15. 



This species presents no very obvious characters beyond those already 

 given. Its body is highly polished, shining even with a metallic lustre 

 whilst the eyes, antennae, rostrum, and legs, reflect the light but feebly. 

 The ovipositor is pure black, but equally splendent with the black-green 



