NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. Ill 



rearing considerable numbers from Jmo am parents, of a species shewing 

 female dimorphism, will be able to render valuable service to science. — 

 L. Doncasteb; University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Feb. 13th. 

 [If such small animals as water-fleas can be easily obtained, these 

 should be given. Otherwise decaying leaves, &c., from the bottom of 

 a pond or stream will always contain bloodworms and other small life 

 on which the nymphs will feed ; but care must be taken that no fresh 

 nymphs are introduced. The size of the nymphs of E. cyathigerum in 

 the present instance raises an interesting question. Clearly they will 

 not be full-grown and ready to emerge in May, yet they will probably 

 disclose imagines this year. It is pretty certain that in this species 

 emergences do take place late in the season ; still there do not appear 

 to be two broods annually. Possibly the eggs laid early in the season 

 produce early imagines in the next season, while the late ones produce 

 late imagines the next year. Are there two races, in fact ? Perhaps 

 Mr. Doncaster will be able to settle the question. I have thought that 

 the late males of E. cyathigerum at the Black Pond, in Surrey, have 

 more pronounced markings than the early ones. — W. J. L.] 



Western Smerinthids. — The whole Smerinthid fauna of the United 

 States numbers only about nine species. A few of these have spread 

 over a very large area, and have split up into more or less distinguishable 

 local races. Thus Smerinthus cerisyi, Kirby, and Pachysphinx modesta, 

 Harris, have their eastern and western forms, quite distinguishable, 

 but not very well to be separated specifically. The beautiful Cala- 

 symbolus exctBcatus, Abbot and Smith, is common in the States east of 

 the plains, but has apparently not been reported further west.* At 

 Pecos, New Mexico, July 22nd, 1903, 1 took a fine female of C. exca.- 

 catus, with an expanse of 85 mm. It differs from the normal eastern 

 form in having the upper third of the outer margin of the anterior 

 wings more strongly dentate, and the colours of the wing in general 

 paler and yellower, with the upper two-thirds of the median field light 

 greyish ochre, leaving the dark central spot very conspicuous. Pro- 

 visionally, this form may be treated as a variety, pecosensis ; but, as 

 the pallid coloration is just what would be expected in a western race, 

 judging from other known cases, it is at least probable that the dis- 

 covery of other examples will enable us to recognize a subspecies or 

 idiomorph. On the other hand, it is very likely that a similar colora- 

 tion may occur here and there as an aberration among eastern 

 examples. — T. D. A. Cockerell ; Boulder, Colorado, Feb. 10th, 1905. 



Leucophoea surinamensis, L., breeding in Britain. — With reference 

 to the interesting note by Mr. Horrell in your last issue {ante, p. 92), it 

 may be worth recalling that at the October (1904i meeting of the 

 Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society in Liverpool, I ex- 

 hibited a series of this distinct little cockroach, in all stages of growth, 

 which had been captured amongst turfs at Fallowfield during 1903 

 and 1904, and kindly sent to me by Dr. W. E. Hoyle, M.A., and 

 Mr. J. Ray Hardy, of the Manchester Museum. Cockroaches are at 



* Except in the far north-west (British Columbia), where climatic con- 

 ditions are entirely different from those in New Mexico. 



