3

another year. This has the white band much narrower than in my other two specimens
232 Euclidia Erecthea, Cramer.
220 Arctia Virginica Fab.
214 Sesia diffinis Boisduval.
210 Deilephila lineata, Fab.
211 Chaerocampa tersa, Lin.
129 Proconia 4 - vittata Say.
85 Tetraopes tetrophthalma Forster
98 A species of Ornithomyia. What did it come off from? I have a species, found on the Owl, but have not compared to see if it is the same as this.
In one of the paper envelopes I met with 5 speciemens of a Bee-fly (family Bombylidae) and
a bee that had been taken off from a pin - whence I infer you had had been comparing and was
perhaps puzzled with these flies, they are so very much like bees. There was a bug (Phytocoris) in the
same envelope. If you recollect anything of interest with regard to these flies, please communicate it.
The species is the Ploas auripilis (Golden-haired Bee-fly) of my Mss. I think, however, it has very likely
been named by Macquart, who has described all of our more common flies. I took two individuals of
this same species, in Pope Co. Illinois, Aug. 30, twenty four years ago, when I made a western excursion
- and these are the only specimens I have ever seen until now. I am very glad to meet with this
old acquaintance again.
The above was wrote some days ago, and I was, before closing
and sending you this, awaiting a leisure hour to write upon one or two other topics. I have just now
received your letter of Dec. 29th. Epicauta is the name (orginally proposed by DeJean, who, however,
gave no description of the genus) for a subdivision of the old genus Cantharis of Geoffrey - afterwards
named Lytta[underline] by Fabricius - but Geoffrey's name being first given should be retained. The Cantharis vesica-
toria Linn. is the type of the genus Cantharis; - hence those species which are closest allied to that
are still retained under that genus. But a much greater nuimber of species, & these from all parts of the
world, fall in the new genus Epicauta. Where a genus gets to be so inconveniently large as Cantharis was,
it is better to have it cut up - but many of the entomologists of the day are carrying this quite too far, &
are making the genera almost as numerous as the species are, and bothering the science with a mass