38 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 
July 26,—The “ Hellgrammite Fly’—Corydalis cornutus. 
August 3.—Dzucerca lurida ; 8% tenths of an inch long. 
September 1.—Chr-ysomela scalaris. 
September 11.—“ Black-flies” made their second appearance: an un- 
usual occurence. Several children were rather severely bitten by them. 
It may not prove uninteresting to your readers if I He the fol- 
lowing brief atmospheric notes :— 
November 10.—First fall of snow. 16.—Sleighing. 28.—The river 
Otonabee, a rapid stream, frozen across from side to side. 30.—Ther- 
mometer 13° below zero—a somewhat extraordinary record for the month 
of November.—V. CLEMENTI, B.A. 
“ POLYHISTOR ?”—I cannot pass Mr. Couper’s remarks on pp. 178—9, 
Vol. i., unnoticed, though I have no quarrel with that gentleman. First, 
he takes too much unction to his soul in supposing that by qualifying too 
sweeping an assertion (see p. 158), I have in any way weakened the asser- 
tion that he mistook the above Lepidopterous larva for that of a Cole- _ 
opter. I know positively that the Balaninus larva spins no web, while 
the Holcocera larva does. ‘The first leaves the acorn to burrow in the 
ground, with rare exceptions, in the fall of the year; and any one who col- 
lects infested acorns on the last of March, as did Mr. Couper, will be 
morally certain to find 999 of them containing the Holcocera where one 
contains the Balaninus. Mr. Cooper's description on p. 65 also shows 
plainly that his larvae were moth-larvae, for in those of Balanxinus the 
thorax is not ‘‘ chestnut colour,’ and there are not numerous dots on the 
body. Feeling pretty sure that Mr. Couper had made a mistake, I drew 
attention to it for truth’s sake, and if Mr. Couper writes for truth rather 
than victory, he will plainly tell the readers of the ENTOMOLOGIST, as he 
promised to do, whether or not he bred moths from those larvae which he 
obtained in March. ‘Too much error creeps into entomelogical literature 
by careless description, and the settlement of the point in dispute between 
us is quite important. I have already stated that I know of no curculio- 
nidous larva in the United States that spins a cocoon. If Mr. Couper’s 
larvae were really curculionidous, we shall have at least one exception ; but 
I submit in all earnestness that no proof has yet been given. 
With regard to the other strictures in his article on p. 178, I have little 
to say. I still claim that Mr. Couper should not use the term “ Family” 
in the sense of “Order,” as he did on p. 35 ; and whether Mr. Pettit, of 
