294 PORTY-FTRST RePORT ON TME StAT^] MuSEUM. 



lished elsewhere, while enriched with illustrations which in beauty and accuracy have 

 never been surpassed, it is to be regretted that their author should be compelled to find 

 the reward for his years of untiring labor in the honor that they may bring him, and not 

 in a pecuniary return. A merited tribute to the high character of this work may be 

 found in Science, for October 9, 1885 (p. 307). 



The Butterflies of Neio England, which has been under the pen and pencil of Mr. S. H. 

 Scudder for several years, and which has been so long awaited by entomologists, is, we 

 learn, rapidly approaching completion. Having had the privilege of examination of sev- 

 eral of the plates which are being printed at the well-known house of Sinclair & Sons, 

 Philadelphia, by the chromo-lithographic process, I may say of them, that they are 

 marvels of faithfulness and beauty, hardly to be distinguished from hand-coloring. 

 They certainly mark an advance in the application of this art to insect illustration that 

 has never before been equalled in this country or in Europe. 



A Hand-book of all the Lep idoptera desc>~ibed as belonging to the North American Fauna, 

 North of Mexico, giving brief descriptions of all the species known, to be illustrated with 

 wood-cuts and lithographic plates, under the editorship of Mr. Henry Edwards, of New 

 York, is announced. It will be issued in parts, by S. E. Cassino, as stated in a circular 

 distributed, and will be commenced as soon as a sufficient number of subsribers 

 can be obtained. 



Mr. R. H. Stretch is engaged on a Monograph of the Zygainidce, Lithosiidai and Arctiidce 

 of North America, in which it is intended to collate all the literature relating to these 

 families, and to illustrate all the species. About 350 figures have already been drawn for 

 the work. 



JDIPTERA.— We are unable to report much progress in this Order during the year. 



Dr. S. W. Williston has completed his series of three papers on the Classification of the 

 North American Piptera in the families Xtjlophagida'., Stratiomyidce, Tabanidce, Leptidce, and 

 Syrplddce.. published in the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society (vii, p. 129) and 

 in Entomologica Americana (i, pp. 10, 114, 152). In these papers some new species are 

 described, synoptic tables of the genera and diagnoses of the tribes and families given, 

 and structural features illustrated. 



Dr. Williston has also published Notes and Pescriptions of North Amm~ican Xylophag- 

 idce and Stratiomyidce {Ga.n. 'Ent., xvii, p. 121), in which eleven species are described as 

 new. 



Dr. Hagen has written of the Hessian Fly in Paly, recording its notice in that country 

 (Can. Ent.. xvii, p. 129). He has also collated some facts relating to the food of the larva 

 of Scenopinus, leading him to offer the suggestion that (S. pallipes found beneath car- 

 pets, may be carnivorous (id., xviii, p. 73). Some observations of my own which are 

 stated in the 2d Eeport on the Insects of New York, give additional reason for believing 

 that this remarkable larva, feared as a carpet-feeder, may prey upon the larva of the 

 clothes-moth, Tinea pellionella (Linn.). 



The volume last referred to, contains also notices of an unknown dipterous larva 

 feeding upon a fungus occurring on q.uince, the emasculating bot-fly (Guterdbra emas- 

 mdator), Bibio albipennis, Microdon globosus, and Trypeta pomonella. 



As addenda to the Scenopinus article by Dr. Hagen, Baron Osten Saeken has con- 

 tributed to the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine for the present month of August (vol. 

 xxiii, p. 51-52) Notes toward the Life-history of Scenopinus fenestralis, in which the liter- 

 ature of the species is more fully developed, and the conclusion drawn therefrom that 

 the larva is undoubtedly carnivorous; and that it frequents fungi, hair mattresses, 

 carpets, swallows' nests, decaying wood, animal dejections, etc., not for the sake of the 

 animal remains or the vegetable matter, but for the larvae or the pupae of the moths 

 that live in them. 



Dr. Hagen has also recorded the rearing from stored sea-weeds in Harvard College 

 Laboratory, of what is probably an addition to the small number of known marine 

 insects — Offitopa/ri'gida Fallen. Its earlier stages are unknown, and the opportunity 

 is taken to call attention to the absence of any collation of our knowledge of the earlier 

 stages of the Diptera (Can. Ent, xvii, p. 140). 



