I am asked to write for the Can. Ent. a paper on breeding butterflies, and on taking observations of the larval stages, and I comply with pleasure, hoping that what I shall say may be the means of inducing some collectors to cultivate this field. There are many local collections of butterflies in Canada and the United States, and a few general North American collections, more or less complete. But their owners are mostly satisfied with mere collecting and accumulating specimens of the imago. Very few know anything of the larval and other stages of the butterflies, unless of some of the common species. And where anything is known, very little is given to the world. Some collectors, however, have also been breeders of butterflies, sphinges and moths on a large scale. As for example, our friends, John Akhurst and Professor Julius E. Meyer, of Brooklyn, each of whom could fill a good-sized volume, if they would relate one half of what they know on these subjects. Such an one was the late William Newman, of Philadelphia, who lived to a good old age, and had spent his spare hours for many years in collecting and breeding lepidoptera. But none of these gentlemen have published a line that I am aware of, and the entomological world is not much the wiser for their private experience. So that practically here is a great field almost unworked.

About the middle of May, 1883, Mr. A. W. Hanham took a ♀ T. Niphon a few miles from the City of Ottawa. This was the only specimen at that time seen.

On the 4th May last, when walking along the Chelsea Road, near the village of Chelsea, P. Q., with Mr. Harrington, he called my attention to a small butterfly which had just alighted on the bare road in front of us. This I was delighted to recognise as Niphon. Having no nets with us, a too near approach was only rewarded with the mortification of seeing the coveted prize flit lightly up to the top of some high pine trees. Subsequent to this date the weather was cold aud wet for some time, and I had no opportunity to visit the locality until the 22nd of the month.

These beetles were very abundant at Oak Hill, Columbia Co., New York, during the months of July and August, in the several years of 1875 to 1882. Harris states that the larvæ feed on the trunks and roots of the Balm of Gilead and Lombardy Poplar. Oak Hill is a part of the old Manor of Livingston, and is notable for the variety and age of its oaks. Upon the lawn immediately in front of the dwelling are two ancient trees of the black oak variety, one of which is supposed to be two hundred years old. From the roots of these o1d trees these beetles would emerge during the first two weeks in July, usually appearing just after sun-down, or in the darkness preceding a shower. During the sun-light, the closest observation of the short cut lawn skirting the trees, would not reveal a beetle, but so soon as the sun rested behind the towering Catskills, these revellers of the twilight and the darkness would come forth. Their presence is quickly realized by the odor of the ♀, which is very powerful, and can readily be detected twenty feet distant.

My collections in this extensive family contain over ninety species, of which several are yet undetermined. The great similarity of the species in some genera and the variation in form and color of individuals in other groups render their determination difficult.

Donacia pubescens Lec. This species is readily distinguished by the dense pubesence of thc upper surface, which in our other species is of metallic lustre. It was described from a specimen taken by Dr. Le Conte at Smoky Hill river, while on the W. Pac. Ry. survey between kansas and New Mexico in 1867, (Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. Vol. 11, pg. 55.) It has since been recorded from Michigan and Buffalo. Four or tive specimens taken by Mr. Fletcher in a small swamp near the city, in 1878.

I have to record the capture of some Coleoptera in rather an unusual manner. Last week while out in the woods on one of my collecting tramps, I was attracted to an old stump by the glittering of something in the sun. Closer acquaintance did not at first solve the mystery; the bright object seemed to be buried among some debris. Further examination revealed the dried and withered remains of a small toad, the glitter being that of some Buprestidæ partly exposed in what was once the stomach of the defunct batrachian.