282 Winter Insects of Eastern Mw York. [May, 



The Winter Aruskcloe is met, with in the last days of aiilunin 

 and again for a short time in the first days of spring, and speci- 

 mens are 0(;casionally found in any of the winter months. It is 

 a somewhat rare insect, which no one can fail to distinguish clear- 

 ly by the marks on its wings as above described. 



6. Cjiironomus nivoriunuus. T/ic Snow-horn Midge. 



Black; poisers obscure-brown; wings pellucid-cinereous, their 

 anterior nervures blackish. 



Length about 0.15 to tlit; tij) of tlie abdomen in the males; fe- 

 males a third shorter. 



This species is black throughout, and clothed with fine black 

 hairs. The thorax has three slightly elevated longitudinal ridges 

 immediately forward of the scutel. The wings, when the insect 

 is at rest, are held against the sides of the abdomen, oiten verti- 

 cally in the males, but moie commonly in the females with their 

 inner margins in contact, thus forming a steep roof covering the 

 back. They are diaphanous, of a cinereous tinge, and feebly 

 iridescent. Their inner margins towards their bases are slightly 

 arcuated. The submarginal or postcostal nervures, those which 

 bound the closed basillary cell, and which proceed from this cell 

 to the margin, are particularly obvious, being of a blackish color, 

 excepting the nerve which proceeds from the inner angle of this 

 cell to the a]>ex of the wing, which, with the nervures inside of 

 it, scarcely difler in color from the surface which they ramify. 

 The ]:)07.v«r.s' are obscure-bi-ownish, truncated at their apices, the 

 capitulum being in the i'orm of a reversed triangle. The abdomen 

 in the females is shorter than the wings, somewhat compressed, 

 approaching to an ovate form when viewed laterally, with the 

 venter often of a dull brownish tinge: in the males it projects be- 

 yond the tips of the wings, is slender, cylindrical or very slighly 

 tapered towards the tip, with some of the terminal segments sepa- 

 rated by a strong contraction. 



This is a veiy common species, appearing upon the snow^ in the 

 winter season, and upon fences, windows, &c., in the fore part of 

 spring, the males and the females being about equally numerous. 

 The beaut ifid ])luinose antennre of the former distinguish them at 

 a glance from all other insects abroad at this season. At times 

 they may be met with in immense swarms. April 27th 1346, in 

 a forest, for the distance of a fourth of a mile, they occurred in 

 such countless myriads as to prove no small annoyance to the 

 passer, getting into his mouth, nostrils and ears at every ste]), and 

 literally covering his clothing. These had pi-obably hatched from 

 the marshy bor-der of an adjoining lake, on this and the preceding 

 days, the weather having been remarkably warm and dry. The 

 wings appear to be more hyaline and iridescent in those individu- 



