Article beginning on page 362.
Psyche 7:362, 1894.

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362 p.9 X'HB. arch 1896.
able that the ants first acquired the
habit in the case of the underground
species like the corn root-aphis. The
oviparous females of this form wander
through the g~illcries of the formicary, occasionally extruding an egg and
then die. Of course any suggestions
as to how the first egg's came to be
carried tlirough thc winter can only
be speculative. It apparently is not
impossible that the ants noticed some
quality about the eggs as they were
first extruded which led them to
recognize them as a part of their
food-giving pets; or possibly the first
eggs were overlooked and allowd
to pass the winter where the mother
aphid deposited them, and been dis-
covered in spring at the time the
aphides were hatching; or the eggs
may have been first stored up for
food, and the surplus left over in
spt~inghave hatched. However the
habit may have originated it evidently
is so useful to all it would be fostend
Having once become an established
routine of the ants' yearly cycle, it is not difficult to imagine that they
would recognize the egg's of aphides
living above ground, especially those
living in covered outside tunnels of
the ants, and thus gradu~lly develop
the habit of carrying the eggs in and
the resulting young out.
Passing now for a moment to the
group of aphides whose hibernating
condition is exemplified by the Woollj
Aphis of the alder (p. 359) it is easy to see how natural elimination may have
brought about the existing conditions.
This species appears never to devclop
any eggs : consequently it must pass tho winter in some living stage. The col-
onies of viviparous forms are constantly bringing forth multitudes of livingyounu which of course are more abundant in
autumn than at any other season. The
crowding produced by numbers would
often compel them to wander mei" all
parts of the shrub. Those reaching
late in autumn the bases of the main
steins would i-.kmd a tnucli better chance of surviving the effects of wind, snow,
rain and ice than those on other parts
of the tree. This constant elii-ninntion of the unfit and the ' inliei ited memory' of tlic fit would lead to present condi- tions.
OWPOSITION AND HATCHING OF
THA NA 0.7 'JU VENAL IS.
May 16, 1894, I followed a hpecimen of
T. jtivenatis which was apparently search- ing for a food plant among the scrub oaks of Middlesex Fclh at Maiden, Mass. The in-
sect flew down to the base of a small, six- inch seedling of @ercids alba and laid a single egg upon the stem of the plant, an inch from the ground, among the tender, reddish, scale-like leavcb. The act. of oviposition lasted about ten seconds, during which the insect's wings were folded back to back, her fore-reel grasping the stem, while the mid- and hind-feet were rubbed quickly togellicr and alongthe aides of the abdomen, appear- ing to assist the process of egg-laying. This occurred on a warm, sunny day, an hour
before noon. The egg, delicately greenish when laid, soon became white and within
twenty hours was orange in color. Seen




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LUerally, it WEIS well-rounded, broadest just above the little-flattened base, with low, longitudinal, raised ribs connected by deli- cate, transverse ridges. The longitudinal ribs were sixteen in number, of å´whic four pairs, each consisting of two ribs uniting near the summit at a sharp nngle, enclosed within the four loops thus formed from one to three shorter ribs. Diameter, 1.27 mm Nine dajs after deposition the egg began to hatch, one rainy forenoon, having become darker and finally of a brassy color, the shell being transparent between the ribs. The
liirva inLenuiLtently pawed an opening at the micropyle. then started a second hole which at length coalesced with the first one. Although the aperture thus formed was large enough, the larva did 1101 emerge but begiin two more openings on the side of the egg- shell. The shell had become shrunken and distorted, tnennwhile. I watched the progi-es* of h;itc,hing, or rather, lack of prugrcss, for two days, at intervals. The c.aterpillar's method of. work was to eat for ten minutes and then to rest for forty-five, and when I made investigations during an nnus-.ually long rest, I found that the hirva had died. At Prospect Hill, Waltliatn. Mass., June 10, 1894, I enclosed a suspicious acting T. juvenulis alive in a small pastebonrd box in which she boon laid a single egs the hatch- ing of which I did not witness, however. This female also had been fluttering about seedling white-oaks in an inquisitive way. ~usfzs W. Folsom.
NOTES.-A new monthly journiil of ento-
mology has appeared in Tokyo, Japan, under the title Konclifi Gaku Zasshi, or Journal of Insect Science. The first number was issued i October hist and is wholly in Japanese excepting an English title and the statement that the plate represents insects injurious to rice and mulberry.
In the Kansas University Quarterly for
J n a W. A. Snow gives a list of N. A.
Asilidne ?iuppleinentiiry to Oaten S;i.cken's Catalogue.
Just Published, by Henry Holt & Co., New York. Scudder's Brief Guide to the Com-
moner Butterflies.
By SAMUEL 13. SCIJUUI~~~. xi + 206 pp.
izino. $1.25.
An introduction, for Lhe young studcnt, to the names and something of the relationship and lives of our commoner butterflies. The- author h2s selected for treatment the butter- flies, kss 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 fnr from the author's purpose to treat them as if theywereso many mere postage-stamps to be classified ;I~I(J 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 frtcta concerning their periodicity and their habits of life.
Scudder's The Life of a Butterfly.
A Chapter in Natural History for
the General Reader.
B~SAMUEL II SCUDDER. 186 pp. i6mo.
$1.00.
In this book the author has tried to present in untechnical hinguage Llie story of the life of one of our most conspicuous American
butterflies. At tlie siime time, by inti-oduc- ng into the account of its ansitom?, devel- opment, distribution, enemies, and seasonal chiuiges some coinparisons with the more or less dissimilar structure and life of other hut- terflies, and particnlarly of our native forms, lie has endeavored to give, in some fashion and in brief space, a general account of the lives of the whole tribe. By usin: E). single butterfly as a special text, one may discourse ;it pleasure of man?: clnd in the limited field which our native hiiL1e1-flies cover, !hi& meth- od has a certain advantage from its simplicity and directness.




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