Jan, June - Hindawi

407

ENTOMOLOGICAL ITEMS.DR. C. V. RZL]Y ca]Is attention, in the

American nauralis for August 1882, to])or,korajuucta as an enemy of the e,-

plant, in Georgia.

MR. JAMS T. DEweY records, in the Ento-mologist tbr Jan, 1882, the capture of a largenumber of lepidoptera around an electriclight in Eastbourne, England.ACCORDING to a paper by Miss Mary H.

Hinckley in the American naturalist forAugust 1882, the tree-toad ([-Iyla versicolor)feeds at first upon aphides but later its chieffood is flies; both kinds of insects are takenonly when alive.

A MONSTROSITY in a specimen of 2kIelo-lonlha vulgaris is described in the E,tomo-

logiscke nackricklen for 5 June 1882. Thisspecimen has three feet on the left posteriorleg. The leg is about two millimetres shorterthan the corresponding leg on the other sideof the insect.

I TH meeting of the Linnean society ofLondon, on 16 March 1882, Mr. Smith show-ed a bee caught alive in England, which hada profuse growth of the Zsaria form of Cor-dicebs sfikecoceOkala, a West Indian formthe latter genus being closely allied to Cla-

vic@s, or ergot.Ix TI-I; Enlonologlscke nackrlcklen for

Sept. and 5 Oct. 88 are two short but in-teresting communications, one by Bieger andone by Gauckler, on the effect of the food-plants of lepidopterous larvae on the proauc-tion of varieties. The species upon whichresults were recorded are t?ombyx quercus,Arctia caja and Hadena )6isL"MssRs. WILKNSOZ and Lawson, have

heard, used to place their rubbish" from flood-ing of rivers "in a sieve, with a bag under-neath, and then put a little ammonia amongstit: the beetles immediately rushed away to

escape from the fumes, fell into the bag, andso were easily eliminated and captured;have never tried this plan, but it seems feasi-

ble, unless the ammonia should kill the

smaller and more delicate species before theycould escape. A basin with steep sides isthe best vessel in which to examine flood-reflse." "The rubbish may be kept for a

long times, and yet be productive. It isalways as full of larvae as of beetles, andthese will breed out and fresh species keepappearing."W. W. Fowler in the 2ntomo-logist, June 1882, v. 15, p. 125.

Ir THE May (1882) naeeting of the Lin-nean Society of London, Mr. P. H. Gossemade a communication "dealing with clasp-ing organs auxiliary to the generative partsin certain groups of lepidoptera. After

preliminary remarks the author mentions hismode of manipulation, and proceeds to a

description of the organs in question, finallydealing with the modification ofthe apparatusas investigated in a very considerable num-ber of the species of the genera Ornltk@teraand Pa)Silt’o."

DR. O. SCttMIIDgKNIgCHT, Of Gumperda,in Thtiringen, read a paper at one of the

monthly meetings of the "Irmischia," atErfurt, xecently, a short report of which

appears in the En/omologiscke zackrichlen,

15 Nov. 1881, jahrg. 7, P" 32I"323; in whichhe enumerated a large number of Europeanspecies of Bombus which are subject to wide

variatior, describing their variant coIorationalcharacters, and stating that even the malecharacters, which must be relied on for speci-fic discrimination, are variable to someextent. Probably similar differences are tobe detected in our own species.

DR. JULIUS 1NTATHAN notices the lack ofsensitiveness of larvae of ;Erista.lis to badodors, in Kosmos, jabrg. 6, p. 298. Havinghad his attention called to the subject by an

experiment of Darwin’s, he sought to stupefythe larvae of Erislalis lenax, in the same

way as he had done with lepidopterous larvae.The larvae of tristaiis, however, took nonotice of small quantities of chloroform; itwas only after Dr. Nathan used an amountof chloroform sufficient to stupefy a child

408 PS"CItE.

that he brought about a suspension of motionof the larvae. He concludes therefrom thatthe larvae of Eristalis, which inhabit stink-ing water, are only slightly sensitive tostrong-smelling substances.--Tr, from En-tomogt)c]te tackric/tlen, 15 Aug. 1882, jahrg.8, p. 232.

A NEW MUSEUM PEST.--Mrs. A. E. Bush,an esteemed correspondent of San Jos6, Cal.,complains lately in her letters of the ravagesof a dermestid in her insect collection, andfrom specimens, larvae and imagos, latelysent to us, we find that the species in questionis the handsome Perimeg,atoma variegratumHorn. We do not find that this species wasever known before as a museum pest, andthere is danger that it may become distrib-uted in insect collections all over the country,just as have the other species of the same

family, which are so well-known and dreadedby entomologists.--Amer, naturalist, Oct.I882, v. I6, p. 826.

DR. BERGMANN has lately shown that for-mic and acetic acids are met with, as constit-uents of protoplasm, throughout the wholevegetable kingdom, and can be regarded as

constant products of metastasis in vegetableprotoplasm. It is very likely that formicacid, at least, will be found in all insects, as

soon as they have been carefully studied.Dr. Bergmann thinks it probable that propio-nic, butyric, caproic, or even this whole seriesof acids, are universally distributed in thevegetable kingdom. There are however, inmy opinion, certain arresting processes inthe retrogressive tissue-metamorphosis thatcause insects to develop usually for the mostpart formic, sometimes butyric, rarelyas inbeesvaxcerotic acid. G: D.

WE CLUOT the following interesting note

by J. Jenner Weir, from the Entomologist forJuly 188: "Danaine bufterflies not subjectto the attack of mites.--In the Proceedingsof the Entomological society for the year1877, p. xii, Mr. Meldola remarks that ’he hadobserved that certain distasteful species of

lepidoptera preserved their disagreeable qual-ities after death, in proof of which he exhib-ited some butterflies found among an oldcollection of Indian insects, the greater partof which had been demolished by mites.The surviving specimens were all of protect-ed species, viz., four of a Eui61oea, one ofDanais bleibbus, and one of Papilio pam-mon. Y.ujhloea and Z)anais were well knownto be protected genera, since they serve formodels of mimetic resemblances. With re-

gard to Pajbilio jbavnmon, Mr. Meldola statedthat, in his belief, it was in some way dis-

tasteful, as he had seen it in swarms on theisland of Nancoury, Nicobar islands, in

April, I875.’ In Mr. Meldola’s valuabletranslation of Dr. Aug. Weismann’s ’Studieson the theory of descent,’ p. 337, the transla-tor, in a footnote, makes a similar statement.I lately became possessed of four cases ofIndian lepidoptera, which had been almost

entirely destroyed by mites, but the danainebutterflies were uninjured: there was one

species of Euhloea and four of Danais, in-

cluding D. chrysi2bus, 19.. limniace, andD. blexi2bus the specimens of Pabilio bam-mon were also in fair condition."

.LE.PI.DOPTERA AND COLEOPTERA.

Inflated larvae and well prepared lepidoptera andcoleoptera of Europe, especially those of Germany,sold at catalog-prices. Address

DR. OSKAR KRANCHER,Bayrische Strasse, I2, II, r,

Leipzig, Germany.

WA.N’TED.

Annual Reports entom, sue. of Ontario for

I87 and 1878.Lintner. Entomological contributions (any

part).Riley. Reports state entom. Missouri (any year).Address, stating price postpaid,

EDITOR OF PSYCHE,Cambridge, Mass

No. 1oo was issued I5 Jan. 1883.

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