Article beginning on page 95.
Psyche 5:95-96, 1888.

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July-August iSSS.1
ENTOMOLOGICAL ITEMS.
DR. A. S. PACKARD. The June (1888)
numero of the Po@lar science mo?~thZy con- tains a sketch of the life and services to sci- ence of Dr. A. S. Packard. A portrait ac- companies the article.
EPHEMERIDAE.-Rev. A. E. Eaton having
completed his monograph of recent May-
flies (Trans. Linn. soc. Lond. s. 2, v. 3 pp. 35-2, 65 plates) gives in the June and July numeros of the Ent. 1110. mag., a generic synopsis with annotated list of thirty-seven British species.
ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB, A. A. A. S.-The
next meeting of the club will be held at Cleveland, Ohio, in the High School build- ing, on Wednesday, the 15th of August, at g A. M. Entomologists intending to present papers should send the titles to the same to the secretary, Prof. A. J. Cook, Agricultural College, Michigan in order that they may be announced in the programme.
LEBARON'S REPORTS.-As state entomolo-
gist
of Illinois, Dr. William LeBaron pre-
pared the four reports for the years 1871 to 1874, the second to the fifth of the series. Prof. S. A. Forbes has copies of these which he will send to entomologists on receipt of the requisite amount of postage.
The first
report requires three cents postage. the sec- ond and third each two cents and the fourth six cents. Prof. Forbes' address is Cham- paign, Illinois.
CURCULIO INJURY TO CHERRIES.-Accord-
ing to experiments carried on at the Ohio station three-fourths of the cherries liable to injury by the Plum curculio, Conotmchelus ~mzz@/;ar, were saved by spraying the trees with London purple, used in proportion of one ounce to five gallons of water. The
spraying was done soon after the blossoms fell.
On check trees where the spraying was
omitted the curculios did much damage. No trace of the poison was discovered on analy- sis of the fruit a week after spraying. Spray- ing with a solution of lime was also tried but was less effective, only forty per cent being saved.
GLOSSINA MORSITANS. -V. Fric, natural
history dealer, Wladislawgasse 21, Prague, offei s among other interesting entomological material specimens of the famous TSETZE- FLY, Glossi~za mo~sitcnis. This species which is allied
to our common STABLE-PLY, Sto-
moseys calcztrans, is so injurious to horses and cattle that some portions of tropical Africa are rendered impassable. Though
locally abundant the species is rare in collec- tions. Westwood in Proc. 2001. soc. Lon- don, 1858, v. 18, describes and figures three species of Glo'ssiuct and remarks upon their supposed connection with the fourth plague of Egypt.
BEES IN THE MAILS. -Under
date of 17
July 1888 the postmaster-general announces "The Canada office having assented to the proposition of this department to admit to the mails exchanged between the United
States and Canada packages of queen bees and their attendant bees when so put up as to prevent injury to those handling the mails, while a1 the aame time allowing an easy veli- fication of the contents, packages of bees will hereafter be entitled to transmission by mail to Canada provided they conform to the con- ditions prescribed for them in the domestic mails of this country, and similar packages received in the mails from Canada should be promply forwarded to their destinations and delivered to addresses."
AN ARMY OF MYRIOPODS. - Mr. W. H,
Cleaver of East Bethlehem, Pa., writes to Mr. Edwin Linton concerning an army of
myriopods as follows, "they are travelling eastward in countless millions. They travel at night or in the cool of the morning and evening. They camp during the day by get- ting under sods, boards, stones or anything to protect them from the heat of the sun. In some places during the day they are piled up in great numbers. They do not seem to de- Pu&e 5 095-96 (pre. 1903). hfp //psyche aitclub org/SB-Wl5 htd



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PSYCHE.
[July-August ISSS.
stroy anything on their journey but go harm- lessly along. Fowls will not eat them and birds do not appear to
molest them."
Mr. Linfon identifies the species, with
some doubt, as the common Polydesimis ery- i!hro$ygm, Science, 13 July 1888, v. 12, no. 284, p. 24.
RIVERSIDE NATURAL HISTORY. - Under
this title Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and com- panyhave issued a newedition of THE STAN- DARD NATURAL HISTORY (S. E. Cassino &
Co.). The insects occupy nearly five hun- dred pages of the second volume and with the exception of an appendix by Dr. Packii~d, and a bibliography of some of the more itn- portant publications by Mr. Woodworth, the text of the two editions is unchanged.
Dr.
Packard's contribution consists of a brief account of the Thysano$tera (7'4s and
allies).
The bibliography would have been
more useful if some arrangement (either
alphabetical or chronological) had been fol- lowed. Two plates, a swarm of May-flies and the Hercules beetle originally printed plain are given in color; they are taken from
Brehm's Thierleben as-, are a luge number of the figures. No credit is given in either of the editions for any of the illustrations ; this is a mistake fro111 every point of view. It is
as important for the editors and publishers to show, as it is for the neophyte to know, that the illustrations are from eminent authorities. ON MELANISM IN LEPIDOPTERA. -A CaS-
ual observation this spring- led me to form a hypothesis as to the cause and meaning of melanism in Lepido$tera, which appears to explain a considerable majority of the in- stances, and at the same time, correlates vari- ous facts in connection with it, that are other- wise of obscure import.
I am not sufficiently
acquainted with the literature of the subject to know whether the same hypothesis has
been advanced before, but I do not happen to have met with it.
Melanism appears to be a
. western rather than a northern form of vari- ation, to be associated with a wet rather than with a cold climate; and it has certainly been more common of recent years, which may be attributed to the long succession (nnpi-ece- dented) of wet seasons we have recently
passed through. My observation was on
D\^iurnea\fagella. Twenty years ago this species afforded here an occasional dark or even black var. Happening to meet with
one of these, I searched carefully for two seasons, hut only got one black and two dark specimens. For the last year or two (result of wet seasons) they have been fairly numer- ous. Visiting certain oak trees with a lan- tern one night lately, and the same observa- tion might, occasion favoring, no donbt
have been made during the day, I found the dark var. quite numerous, about one to three of the ordinary form. The point I wish
to call attention to is this : the afternoon had been showery, and one side of the trunk was very wet, the other dry, the wet side was of a very dark color, the dry portions pale, and, as a consequence the dark specimens of thefagella were very conspicuous on the dry portions, hardly visible on the wet, whilst with the ordinary form the conditions were reversed, those on the wet bark were conspic- uous, those on the dry much less so.
This
observation appears to admit of generalising, because we know that many trunks of trees, rocks, stones, mosses, &c. are much darker in color when wet, the change often being from pale grey to black, and that most of the species that are subject to melanic variation are such as are in the habit of resting on such objects; natural selection would thus
have
abundant leverage to work with.
I do not
know whether the melanism of the Lanca-
shire and Yorkshire districts is acknowledged to depend on the general griminess of all natural objects, trees, stones, &c., but there is no doubt that this blackness uf the resting places of insects is intensified when they are wet.
This hypothesis will not probably ex-
plain all cases of melanism, but it seems to be widely applicable. - T. A. CHAPMAN, in Ed. ?EO. mag. July 1888, v. 25, p. 40.
No. 146 was issued 8 June 1888.




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