This question is one that it is extremely difficult to answer satisfactiorilly.

The great naturalist, Agassiz, in his Essay on Classification, wrote:

“Genera are mos closely allied groups of animals differing **** simply in the ultimate structural peculiarities of some of their parts.”

The Century Dictionary defines genus as “a classificatory group ranking next above the species, containing a group a species (sometimes a single species) possessing certain structural characters different from those of any others.” It goes on, however, to say: “The value assigned to a genus is wholly arbitrary–that is, it is considered generic and thus constitute a genus; and genera are constantly modified and shifted by specialists, the tendency being mostly to restriction of genera, with the constant multiplication of their numbers, and the coinage of new generic names.

Exæretopus caricis, n. sp.

Adult ♀ salmon pink, shiny, about 2 mm. long and 1 mm. broad, elongage oval. Legs and antennæ light brown. ♀ secretes a mass of cotton all over her body, becoming so dense as to completely envelope the entire body, looking more like and elongated Eriococcus. This secretion extends caudad, forming a large egg-sac, which, including the whole insect, measures from 4 to 5 mm. Eggs salmon pink. Yound larvæ orange colour. Adult ♀ after boiling in K.O.H.derm remains light brown. Margin beset with fine, short, straight spines, incisions having two stout curved spines. There are numerous short conical spines scatterd over the derm with irregular rows of long fine hairs. Anal plates large and thick, each with four shor, stout spines. Anal ring with six very long, stout hairs, which extend to caudal end of plates. Antennæ long, slender, tapering, 8-jonted. Joint 3 always longest and joint 7 always shortet, each joint with one or more fine hairs, joint 8 with several long hairs.

Mr. Ashmead has written thus of the Xyelidæ: “ the imagoes appear very early in the year, or in February, March and April, Deposit their eggs and then disappear, the consequence being that very few are taken, and only a few of the common forms are known.” Of the genus Xyela, as now restricted only one North American species, X. minor, Norton, has been described.

On May 1st of the present year, as we were going up to our classes in the Normal University at Las Vegas, N.M., my wife picked a small insect off my coat. It was at once transfered to the bottle which is never absent from the entomologist's person, and upon inspection later, proved to be a new species of Xyela, herewith described:

In the course of identifyin a series of Diptera received by Dr. L.O. Howard, and collected in Mexico and New Mexico by Mr. C. H. T. Townsend, a number of new forms were encountered, and as manuscript names of these will soon be sent out it is desirable that these forms should be duly characterized; accordingly, the descriptions are presented for publication herewith.

To this family belong the potter wasps. They differ from the papermaking wasps in being solitary and in constructing their nests of mud or clay, instead of macerated woody fibre or pulp. It is perhaps one of the largest, if not the largest, families in the Vespidea, and is well represented in all parts of the world by many genera and species.

The species superficially resemble the Vespidæ, but are quite distinct and are easily distinguished by the cleft or toothed claws, the claws never being simple or edentate as in the social wasps.

The family, like the Vespidæ, has reached its greatest development in warm or tropical countries.

Phenacoccus acericola, n. sp.

Since 1880, when the above-named species was founded and described as the European Pseudococcus aceris, Geoff. (Phenacoccus), by Miss Emily A. Smith, it has untill recently been supposed to have been that species.

The latter part of 1890, Prof. Cockerell wrote me that he believed our species was distinct from that of Europe, and suggested that I should describe it as new if upon further investigation no reason appeared to the contrary. At the meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists of 1891, at Denver, Colorado, he speaks of it as being without a name.

In his “Insect Book,” Dr. L. O. Howard states that the egg of Ranatra has not as yet been described from the United States. It is hoped that the following note may be of itterest to someone :

On June 24, 1900, the writer was so fortunate as to find a large number of these eggs at Pine Lake, near Lansing, Mich. As the eggs were not recognized at first, they were allowed to hatch, and the nymphs allowed to become about half-grown.

Full-grown larvæ were taken on wild cherry (Prunus) in the latter part of September, 1901. Placed in a box over earth, they fed but a day or two, truned a deep green, and entering the earth two to three inches, formed rounded cells, in which they remained as larvæ all winter, transforming to pupæ just before emergence. They are gregarious, remaining in their web, filled with its mass of exuvia, untill full-grown, when, as their growth is completed, individually they drop from it and enter the ground. One which was kept under observation formed a pupa on April 28th, and emerged eight days thereafter. The pupal skin is very thin, showing distictly the parts of the enclosed imago. This brood commenced emerging April 25th, and a few individuals are still coming out, May 31st. In the eariler days the males predominated, later the females, Altogether, 134 males and 123 females have appeared. Copulation took place at once, the pair remaining in coitu from three to five hours.

In the March number fo The Canadian Entomoloigst, Page 74, I described a, to me, unknown larva, which, according to a statement of Mr. Wm. Beutenmuller, of the American Museum of Natural Histroy of New york, is that of Datana robusta, Strecker. Heretofore the imagoes of D. robusta had all been taken in Texas, and Dr. Dyar in Prof. Packard's Bombycine Moths, Vol. 1., page 120, is quoted as saying that the larva of Robusta was yet unknown. Some have claimed that the species described as Robusta too much resembled Perspicua, but it will be seen that the larva is distinct, and the imagines of both these species are entitled to the names as first described. The body colour fo Robusta larva in black, and the lines are yellow.

In the early part of May of the present year (1902) the writer made an attempt to collect Cicindelæ in the pine belt of North Carolina. While opportunities for observing the distribution of species were too meagre to be of much practical value, certain facts were noted that may be of interest to those studyind the genus.

The first locality visited was Jamestown, a station on the line of the Southern Railway, distant about 220 miles from the coast and 40 from the Virgina line.On the sand bars and banks of Deep River, a tributary of Cape Fear River, beautiful specimens of repanda were taken in abundance. A single duodecimguttata and a single vulgaris of the typical size were taken on the same ground, and few specimens of sexguttata, both six-and eight-spotted, on sanday paths along the wooded banks of the river.