My office duties prevent me, unfortunately, from going afield during almost the entire month of July in each year, and perhaps a few notes on my last ramble, 29th June, may interest the inexperienced, and indicate some of the insects to be found at this time. The special aim of this ramble was to visit a grove of hickories, Carya amara, and investigate the insects occurring in these trees, but I desired also to obtain Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, especially sawflies.

My outfit consisted of a flat beating-net constructed so as to be folded up snugly when not in use; a sweeping-net on a folding pocket-ring; a bottle containing coarse sawdust, with a morsel of cyanide for beetles; a wide-mouthed bottle lined with blotting paper, and having some cyanide in a cavity in the cork, for Hymenoptera, Diptera; a couple of boxes for larvæ, and last, but not least, a note-book and pencil. The day is favorable, the sun shining hotly, yet tempered by a slight breeze.

Valgus canaliculatus Fab. and V. squamiger Beauv., have, so far as I am aware, escaped the notice of American writers on Coleeptera, except that it is mentioned in the U. S. Agricultural Report for 1868, p. 90, that V. squamiger was found in great numbers in January, in Maryland, under the bark and in the rotten wood of a pine stump; and that Fitch gave some account of it, under the name seticollis, in his report for 1857, p. 695, which I have not seen.

The eggs of butterflies are very interesting objects. As a rule, those of each natural genus (I speak of the North American fauna, for I know nothing of the eggs of tropical butterflies), are closely alike, as in Pieris, Anthocharis, Colias, Terias, Callidryas; and so, while each genus has peculiarities of its own, there is a family resemblance between these genera (of the sub-family Pierinæ). They are all of one general shape, long, slender, sub-conic, or spindle-shaped, set on end, but differently ribbed according to the genus. So the eggs of Danais and Heliconia and Agraulis each have their own pattern. A11 Argynnis eggs, whether of the large or small species (Groups 1 and 2), are thimble-shaped. On the other hand, Euptoieta, by its egg, is allied to Argynnis, while by the chrysalis, it is allied to Melitæa. It links the two genera, and in my Catalogue of Di. Lep., I place it between these two, instead of before Argynnis, as has usually been the arrangement. So Melitæa, Phyciodes, Limenitis, Apatura, Paphia, Satyrus, Neonympha, Chionobas, may all be distinguished as readily by the eggs as by the butterflies. Lycæna, Lemonias, Thecla, Chrysophanus, so far as I know them, all show generic peculiarities in the egg stage. So does Papilio, though some of the species, as Philenor and Cresphontes, have the surface covered with a rough crust, the usual type being smooth-surfaced.