4 Winter Insects of Eastern New York. [May, 
clined obliquely downwards, thus, at least partial'y, closing the 
end of the ovipositor; the upper and lower pieces are widely se- 
parated in coition to enable the tip of the male abdomen to ap- 
proximate that of the female. 
1. Borevs nivortunpus. The Snow-born Boreus. 
Shining black or brownish-black; rudimentary wings, thorax 
above, with the rostrum and ovipositor excepting their tips, ful- 
vous; legs dull fulvous. 
Length, male twelve-hundredths of an inch; female, 0.15, or 
including the ovipositor 0.18. 
Head black, highly polished, glabrous. Eyes black. Rostrum 
fulvous and feebly diaphanous, the mouth and palpi black. An- 
tenne black, two basal joints sometimes fulvous-brown. Thorax 
black on the sides, above varying in color from dull fulvous to 
cinnamon yellow, the basal half of the prothorax being black. 
Abdomen black, brownish black, or dull fulvous-brown; terminal 
segment fulvous or cinnamon-yellow, its hooks in the males cin- 
namon-yellow, their tips and teeth black and highly polished; 
ovipositor in the females diaphanous, fulyous, sometimes inclining 
to rufous, black at its tip. Rudimentary wings cinnamon-yellow, 
in the males often of a duller hue towards their tips; rudimentary 
inferior wings in the males of the same color as the superior. Legs 
lurid-yellow and sub-diaphanous, with a slender black annulus at 
each of their articulations; three last joints of the tarsi wholly black. 
Closely allied to the B. hyemalis, which, however, appears 
from Rambur’s Neuroptera, the Penny Cyclopcedia, and the beau- 
tiful colored figure in Westwood’s Introduction, the only definite 
authorities to which I am able to refer, to have the basal two- 
thirds of the antenne of a russet color, and the rudimentary wings 
and the legs strongly inclining to red. Our species presents no 
tinge of rufous, except sometimes in the ovipositor; and the an- 
tenne, black to their bases, is a decided distinctive mark. 
This insect is by no means rare, being found upon the snow in 
forests in warm days, so early as December, and becoming more 
common as the season advances. I have met with it the most 
plentiful in April, when there has been a fall of snow in the night, 
succeeded by a warm forenoon of bright sunshine. Appearing so 
suddenly, in numbers, upon the clean, dazzling white surface thus 
spread over the earth, at the first thought it seems to be literally 
bred from the snow. I have not yet searched for it in the moss of 
tree-trunks, but doubt not that like the European insect, ours will 
also occur in this situation. When observed upon the snow, it is 
almost always stationary; and when approached by the hand, it 
commonly makes a leap, to the distance of a few inches only, its 
saltatory powers appearing but feeble. 
