1900] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 503 



■cocoon of one of these light weight ones about ten cocoons of 

 a Tineid. The cecropia cocoon was a fresh one and evidently 

 spun last fall along with the other cocoons, which have since 

 disclosed imagos of cecropia. It contained a dead cecropia larva 

 on which the Tineid caterpillars had fed. It was covered with 

 silk and frass from the little micros. 



The little female Tineid was evidently able to tell that the 

 big cocoon contained a dead giant on which her progeny could 

 live and flourish, so she deposited her eggs at the small end of 

 the cecropia cocoon and the little caterpillars on hatching either 

 worked their way through the loose strands of silk at this 

 place or else actually ate their way to the dead cecropia larva. 

 After becoming full grown some of the Tineid larvae ate their 

 way through the inner cocoon and spun up between the inner 

 and outer cocoons of the cecropia. Several also perforated the 

 outer cocoon evidently for the purpose of making an exit for 

 the imagos of the Tineid. We reared a number of the little 

 moth and sent one to Dr. W. G. Dietz who pronounced it to be 

 Tinea fuscipuiictella Haw. We also found another cecropia 

 cocoon that had several of the micro cocoons in the dead pupa. 



Synchloe lacinia. — The larvae of this species are very common in 

 the Mesilla Valley, New Mexico, on Helianthtis anmius. For a long time 

 I thought they would live on no other plant, but on Aug. 15, 1897, I found 

 them on Helianthus cilialis, and also a few on Xanthium canadense. On 

 Aug. 23 of the same year, at Mesilla, I found a few larvae on Polypteris 

 hookeriana. The species, therefore, has four known food-plants, all 

 compositae. The imago is preyed upon by the bug Phytnalafasciata. 



Another sunflower insect, the beetle Copturodes cockerelli Casey, was 

 found to occur also on Xanthium canadense at Mesilla. — T. D. A. 



COCKERELL. 



The University of Illinois has fallen heir to the Bolter collection of 

 insects, numbering approximately fifteen thousand species, represented 

 by about seventy thousand specimens, besides thirty thousand duplicates 

 not in the systematic collection. This collection, accumulated during the 

 last fifty years by the late Andreas Bolter, a business man of Chicago, is 

 remarkable for the excellence of the material and for the excellent care 

 with vyhich it has been prepared and arranged. It represents all orders 

 of insects and North America in general, and contains also a considerable 

 amount of exotic material. The gift was made by the executors of Mr. 

 Bolter, in accordance with the terms of his will, conditional upon its 

 maintenance as a unit, under the name of the " Bolter Collection of In- 

 sects," in a fire-proof building. 



