[143] Report of the State Entomologist. 285 



form, color, and markings the common "bald-faced hornet," Vespa 

 maculata Linn., as to be easily (and generally by other than entomolo- 

 gists) mistaken for it. The species had never come under my obser- 

 vation before, nor has it been recorded as occurring in the State of 

 New York. Its first capture was made on the eleventh of August. It 

 continued to increase in number, in both sexes, and the day prior 

 to my departure from the locality (twenty-third inst.) it was more 

 abundant than before. Over forty examples of the species were taken. 

 Nothing, I believe, is known of its larval stage. Several examples of 

 an interesting Conopid fly, Physocephala furcillata Williston, which had 

 previously been taken only on the White mountains, were also cap- 

 tured on the Solidago. A large, globose-bodied Tachinid fly, Echinomyia 

 sp., having its alulae and basal portion of wings of a dull yellow, which 

 I had in former years observed abundantly in Essex county, N. Y., 

 was also a common visitor to the blossoms of the golden rod. 



The collections in Lepidoptera were not large, the locality not being 

 favorable to the multiplication of insects of this order. But few 

 species of butterflies were seen, the following species being the only 

 ones that were observed: Golias Philodice and Pieris rapes, not abun- 

 dant ; Danais Archippus, abundant; Argynnis Cybele, A, Aphrodite and 

 A. Atlantis, all in poor condition ; Argynnis Bellona, not abundant ; 

 Pyrameis Atalanta abundant ; Satyrus Nephele, rare ; Ghrysophanns 

 Americana, very abundant, and frequent on golden rods; Lyccena 

 pseudargiolus, rare, one example ; Vanessa Milbertii, a few: no examples 

 were seen of PapUio, Grapta, Pamphila, or Nisoniades. Of the above 

 named, Danais Archippus (Fabr.) and Pyrameis Atalanta (Linn.) were 

 so abundant in a field of buckwheat that three or four individuals 

 could be taken in a single sweep of the net. Associated with them 

 were numbers of one of the most brilliant and beautiful of our moths, 

 Plusia mortuorum Guenee — a decidedly upland species. Its quick 

 rise from the blossoms of the buckwheat, its rapid flight for a short 

 distance, sudden dropping to the ground and running away to shelter, 

 made it a difiicult insect to capture. The elegantly marked Homoha- 

 dena atrifasciata Morr., of which the first example taken in the Adiron- 

 dacks in the year 1876, commanded in exchange with an enthusiastic 

 lepidopterist, other insects of the value of fifty dollars, was taken 

 from flowers of Eupatorium purpureum. 



Coleoptera were not numerous. Several species of the pretty Lep- 

 turians were found upon the golden rods, and a single example of 

 " the large and elegant Leptura scalaris Say," as characterized by Dr. 

 LeConte (p. 313 of Classification of the Coleoptera of North America), 

 now tne type and only species of the genus Bellamira, was driven up 



