1899] • ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 179 



I believe many a fine specimen has been ruined by the collector's re- 

 lying- wholly upon the cyanide jar. 



My first*' snag" for the cyanide process was a quart of lively 

 Heterogomphus cheri'olati—^wvm, and Strataegus julianus— Burm. 

 They reveled in the cyanide. There was no boiling water. I made 

 a hypodermic syringe by drawing the tip of my medicine-dropper 

 to a fine, slender point in an alcohol flame. By puncturing the 

 thick wall of the metasternum with a strong setting-needle I could 

 easily insert the" hypo" and inject three or four drops of gasoline 

 directly into the body cavity. Death was instantaneous ; no second 

 dose required. I now use the same plin for all large insects. Even 

 the largest sphingids like A»//>^o«?'.t ;«ef/o?"—Cr. are killed in two 

 seconds- without turning a scale. 



Care should be taken to have the bulb of the " hypo '' tit air-tight 

 the tip should taper gradually and with a slight curve. It should 

 be inserted from beneath into the middle of the thorax, and if well 

 managed little or nogasoline should appear on the outside. The 

 tip of the *' hypo " may be protected by thrusting it into a good- 

 sized cork. '' Hypo " and small vial of gasoline may be carried in 

 the same small pocket. O. W. Barrett, 



Tacubaya, D. F , Mexico. 



EcBYSis OF Aiitomen's leucane — Hbn- The thin cocoon is made 

 of coarse, gluey, red-brown silk: 5 mm. inside the front end is a 

 transverse wall or screen with meshes (usually) of about 1 mm. 

 This wall is fastened rather loosely to the cocoon and is not "dis- 

 solved," scarcely softened even, by the imago, but merely loosened 

 at one side. The abdomen at once lengthens 5 mm. or 8 mm. after 

 the pupa case is ruptured and so good " push power" is developed. 

 The hinges of the screen door being broken the ecdyis is completed 

 in three to live minutes, the front end of the cocoon off'ering but 

 little resistance. Twenty to thirty minutes after the screen snaps 

 back into place the wings are full-sized. O. "W. Barrett 



A New Kecord ik an Odd Place.— In January of 1899, while in 

 practice in Los Angeles, a patient presented himself complaining of 

 pain and discharge of watery fluid from one of his ears. 



Examination revealed a tick that was easily removed The tick 

 looked unfamiliar, and on forwarding it to the Dept. of Agriculture 

 at Washington it was discovered to be Argasmegini. Duges, origin- 

 ally described from Mexico and not hitherto reported from the 

 United States. 



The patient had never been twenty miles away from Los Ange- 

 les, and had intheautumn spent a few weeks in the country ,but had 

 not been sleeping out of doors. A. Davidson, M. D., 



Clifton, Arizona- 



Sphex Elegans.— This wasp for some reason or other is very sel- 

 dom found among the many other wasps one may capture in a few 

 days of collecting; yet they must be common in summer, for their 



