Article beginning on page 541.
Psyche 6:541-542, 1891.

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October 1893.1 PSYCHE. 541
a single pair of imaginal tubules. The
Russian investigator has established the sfime interesting fact for Tinea /ellion- ella and BZaho'fihanes rusticella.
On these cases, avowedly exceptional
even among Tineidse, Cholodkowsky
bases his dinephric hypothesis. The
return in the imago to an apparently
simpler condition of the Malpighian
vessels than obtains in the larva, is re- garded by him as a kind of atavism.
To characterize this form of reversion,
which is regular and periodic in its
occurrence, he introduces the term
LLatavisine pkriodique." But it is clear that this atavism, if atavism it be,
must extend to ancestral conditions ex-
ceedingly remote-postulating 2 as the
primitive number of Malpighian tubules
in Arthropods-since the number 2 oc-
curs only in very few insects, and only
in cases where a secondary reduction
from a greater number furnishes a more
plausible explanation (Coccidae) ,
Cholodkowsky assumes that the basal
trunk represents the primitive Mal-
pighian vessel. I would regard both it
and the secondary trunk as compara-
tively recent acquisitions, since I find it difficult to see, on Cholodkowsky's sup- position, why the number of vessels
should be so constant throughout the
order and at the same time agree with
the number observed in the older and
more primitive orders (Orthoptera,
Neuroptera, Panorpata) . Moreover, it
is generally admitted that the Trichop-
tera stand very near the hypothetical
ancestral Lepidoptes, and it has been
shown that both the embryo and im-
aginal Trichopter have 6 discrete
Malpighian tubules. On Cholod-
kowsky's supposition it would be
necessary to regard the urinary vessels
in the lower orders as less primitive
than those of the Lepidoptera, an as-
sumption which certainly has very little in its favor when we stop to consider
the extent to which other organs have
been modified in the Lepidoptera.
ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES. -The 13th part
of Kolbe's Einfuhrung in die kenntnis der in- sekten completes the first volume of the work, and with it the account of the morphology and physiology of insects ; it concludes with a bibliography of the organs of generation. Although only two of the twelve main divi- sionscontemplated have been treated, another volume will doubtless complete the work. In the Contemporary review for Sep-
tember, Weismann has a deeply interesting article on the All-sufficiency of natural selec- tion, supporting his well known views of the intransmissibility of acquired characters, and in which his main arguments are drawn
from the study of ants. "All-sufficiency" is a strong term, and if it were generally con- ceded would prove a distinct bar to progress ; working hypotheses, on the other hand, lie at its very foundation.
In recent information regarding the Cam- bridge botanic garden given in the last num- ber of the Harvard graduates magazine, Prof. G. L. Goodale speaks of the damage done by white ants as follows: "In one part of the wall the ants had taken away nearly all the wood, leaving the painted surface untouched and apparently sound. From this wall they had made their way into floor timbers
hitherto supposed to be free from any pest." Mr. Townsend (Ins. life, 5: 317) identifies the oestrid larva described by him in the cur- rent volume of Psyche, p. 298, as
Cutereha
fontinella Clark.




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p1^2TXfE. [October 1893.
THE SEVENTH VOLUME OF PSTCHE
Begins in January, 1894, and continues through three years. The subscription
price (payable in advance) is $5.00 per volume, or $2.00 per year, postpaid. The
numbers will be issued, as in Vol. 6, on the first day of every month and will con- tain at least 12 pages each. No more than this was promised for the sixth volume, but the numbers have actually averaged more than 16 pages, and in addition 21 plates have been given and more than 50 other illustrations. We prefer to let performance outrun promise, but when a larger subscription list warrants it, we shall increase the number of pages.
Vols. 1-6, Complete, Unbound, - Now sold for $29.00. Vols. 1-6, and Subscription to Volume 7, - - $33.00. JUST PUBLISHED.
Scudder's Brief Guide to the Com-
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By SAMUEL H. SCUDDER, author of "But-
terflies of the Eastern United States and Canada,"etc. xi + 206 pp. 12mo. $1.25.
An introduction, for the young student, to the names and something of the relationship and lives of our commoner butterflies. The author has selected for treatment the butter- flies, less than one hundred in number, which would be almost surely met with by an in- dustrious collector in a course of a year's or two year's work in our Northern
States east
of the Great Plains, and in Canada. While all the apparatus necessary to
identify these
butterflies, in their earlier as well as perfect stage, is supplied, it is far from the author's purpose to treat them as if they were so many mere postage-stamps to be classified and ar- ranged in a cabinet. He has accordingly
added to the descriptions of the different spe- cies, their most obvious stages, some of the curious facts concerning their periodicity and their habits of life. A short introduction to the study of butterflies in general is prefixed to the work, and is followed by a brief account of the principal literature of the subject. Scudder's The Life of a Butterfly.
A Chapter in Natural History for
the General Reader.
By SAMUEL H. SCUDDER. 186 pp. 16mo.
$1 .oo.
In this book the author has tried to present in untechnical language the story of the life of one of our most conspicuous American
butterflies. At the same time, by introduc- ing into the account of its anatomy, devel- opment, distribution, enemies, and seasonal changes some comparisons with the more or less dissimilar structure and life of other but- terflies, and particularly of ou1- native forms, he has endeavored to give, in some fashion and in brief space, a general account of the lives of the whole tribe. By using a single butterfly as a special text, one may discourse at pleasure of many; and in the limited field which our native butterflies cover, this tneth- od has a certain advantage from its simplicity and directness.
HENRY HOLT & CO.,
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NEW YORK.
A. SMITH & SONS, 121 NASSAU STREET, New Vork. MANUFACTURERS AND IMPORTERS OF
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