1847.] Winter Insects of Eastern Mw York. 277 



clined obliquely downwards, thus, at least partially, closing the 

 end of the ovipositor; the upper and lower pieces are widely se- 

 parated in coition to enable the tip of the male abdomen to ap- 

 proximate that of the female. 



1. BoREus NivuRiuNDUs. The Snow-horn Boreus. 



Shining black or brownish-black; rudimentary wings, thorax 

 above, with the rostrum and ovipositor excepting their tips, ful- 

 vous; legs dull fulvous. 



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

 including the ovipositor 0.13. 



//earf black, highly polished, glabrous. Eyes black. Rostrum 

 fulvous and feebly diaphanous, the mouth and palpi black. An- 

 tennae 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. 

 Abdomen black, brownish black, or dull fulvous-brown; terminal 

 segment fulvous or cinnamon-yellow, its hooks in the males cin- 

 namon-yellow, their tips and teeth black and highly polished; 

 ovipositor in the females diaphanous, fulvous, sometimes inclining 

 to rufous, black at its tip. Rudimentary xoings cinnamon-yellow, 

 in the males often of a duller hue towards 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 articulations; three last joints of the tarsi wholly black. 



Closely allied to the B. hyemalis, which, however, appears 

 from Rambur's Neuroptera, the Penny Cyclopccdia, and the beau- 

 tiful 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 ovipositor; and the an- 

 tennae, 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 

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

 saltatory powers appearing but feeble. 

 Vol. v.. No. 13. 19 



