Article beginning on page 202.
Psyche 7:202, 1894.

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202 p.5 YCH.. (February 1895.
Mcia obfusa Osten Sacken, Western
Dipt,, so;;. -The description of this species given by Osten Sacken was only a provi-
sional one, covering the salien t features, owing to the fact that he did not have the specimen before him at the time, hut
depended upon Mr. I-Iy Edwards, the owner of the type, to write him the characters. As I have a specimen, I record the full description. f. Head small, grayish, the antennae
yellow, palpi brown; frontal tubercle distinct, close to the antennae. Thorax grayish
sericeous, ground color yellow, a double brown line on the dorsun~ and an abbreviated one each side of it, reaching to the trans- verse suture; on the pronotum a narrow
median black line; a black stripe from the humerus to the base of the wing. Disk of metathorax and knobs of halters infuscated. Abdomen light brown, darker along the
median line; the horny genital appendages are rather elongate, yellow, not infuseated. Legs brownish yellow, tips of femora and tibiae more infuseated, tarsi dark brown. Wings hyaline and brown, with almost the same pattern as in P. albivitta. The tip of the wing is not bent back so far as
in the
latter species. The brown color follows the fifth vein to the margin, differing in this respect from Mr. Edwa-rds's specimen.
Length, 28 mm. ; of wing, 22 mm.
Lake Union, Seattle, Washington,
the last of August.
The most important structural differ-
ence between this and P. ulbivltta is
in the male lamellae, which are more
than twice as large in the present
species.
GALL OF EURYTOMA SP. ON THE CAT'S-CLAW THORN. BY C. 11. TYI.ER TOWNSEND, LAS CRUCES, N. MEX. Specimens of a very hard rounded
gall were found on. branches and
twigs of the cat's-claw thorn (Acacia
sp.), which grows plentifully from
near base to part way up the Organ
Mts., at the north end of the range,
about three miles southeast of San
Augustine. These galls greatly re-
semble those of Rhodites. At the
date on which they were found, Nov.
26, 1892, they appeared to be empty,
the insects having mostly escaped
through numbers of small holes in
each gall. The galls were quite
plentiful. From those containing
exit holes, the following brief descrip- tion is drawn.
Gall. -Length (measured on twig), 10
to 19 mm. ; greatest width 84 to 16 mm.
Oblong-rounded or suboval, very haid,
always formed on one side of the twig,
the other side of the twig even with the surface of the gall and its bark left intact, the bark of the rest of the twig or branch being split by the growing of the gall and adhering to its surfiice in imperfect strips, being best preserved next the sides of twig. Smaller specimens do not show this. Color reddish brown, more or less grayibh where covered with bark and in smaller galls.
Bulged surface that is not covered by balk finely roughened, sometimes more or less split in process of swelling.
Four galls. The small ones show
only from one to three holes each.
A larger gall shows about twenty
exit holes, and in addition numbers
of very minute holes through which
parasites of the gall flies must have
escaped. The minute holes are about




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Eabruary 1895 1 PSYCHE. 203
-
one-eighth the diameter of the larger
ones. Cutting into one side of this
gall revealed a small live white hymen-
opterotls larva, about a mm. in length
and apparently full grown, resting in
a smdl cell. Old galls show irregular
small hollowed cavities and cells inside. From a specimen which was bred
from the galls, Mr. Wm. H. Ashmead
determined the genus as above. It is
possible, however, that the Eurytoma
is not the gall-maker, but a parasite
of the lalte~.
In August, 1894, a perfect; and evidently freshly emerged, specimen of Limenifis
ar'themis was caught at Nonquitt, Mass., in an exposed place close by the sea.
c. G. Soale.
Dr. McCook is to be warmly congrat~ilated on the successful issue of the third and final volume of his " American spiders and their spinning work," which hiis appeared four years after the second volume. The author is more at home in his delineation of the out door world than in systematic work,
with which this volume is tn.-zinlyconcerned, vet he has iipplied himself to this tusk with commendable zeal and success sin-1
describes
i23 species and 30 generx.
Apparently (as
the table of contents ciirinnsly shows) lie had intended to carry his work beyond the "orb we;iver.,"but Ins coiii-age or his time gave ovit as he saw his work prow Lo portentous dimensions. We have to thmk him for
thirty l:irge and careful pkites of spiders colored besides a mass of str~ictnr~il details ; they will greatly facilitate future stud?. The price of the complete workis now justly advanced to $50. Unhappily the title page is marked 1893, though the preface is dated July 1894, tind the volume w.is not issued until December: 1894.
Mr. and Mrs. Peckham have given us
(Trims. Wisc. ac:id., \) a new beriesof their admiruble experiments with spiders in a
p,iper on their visual powersand color sense ; they " prove conclusivel~ that Attidae see their prey (which consists of smtili insects) when it is motionless, up to a distance of five inches; that they see insects in motion at much greater distances; and that they see each other distinctly rp to at least twelve inches " ; they are guided by sight rattler than by smell. The experimenters are further "of the opinion that all the experiments taken togrther strongly indicate that spiders have the power of cHstingnishing colors."
Certainly thc U. C." [Upper California?] entomological society has done a unique
thing in issuing from Berkeley, Cal., as a Californian journal of entomology " The Entomologists' Daily Post Card" at $2.00 a year. A card of regulation size and color is printed on both sides in clear type, leav- ing a meague space for an address. The
number before us contains an editorial on Note taking, part of a list of species in Edwards's last catalogue of butterflies, and a portion of a tahular key to the genera of N?mphahdae.
It is a curious venture,
In a recent paper on the Siphonaptera
(Proc, Bost. soc. nat. hist., xxvi: 3rz-~,js) Dr. A. S. Packard gives an excellent resume of published observations on the etnbry- olog?, postembryonic history and anntomy and the adult structiit-e of the fleas, adding new data from his own prepar~itions and
numerous figurcs. He is led to regard
tl~ciu as forming a distinct order standing nearer the Diptera than any other, 'but
with many points of relationship to the
Coleoptera.
Hansen gives in English (Ent. tidskr.,
xv, 65-89. pi. 2-3) iin important paper on the structure and habits of Hemimer~is, a



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