ZOOLOGY. 451 



still veils the facts that would solve the question com- 

 pletely." 



The metamorphoses of the blister-beetles (Macrobasis and 

 Epioauta) have been discovered by Mr. C. V. Riley, who 

 publishes a full account of them in the Transactions of the 

 St. Louis Academy of Sciences. He has found the larvae of 

 different ages within the egg-pods and devouring the eggs 

 of Caloptemis spretus. From such larvae Riley has reared 

 three species of our common black blister-beetles, so destruc- 

 tive at times to the potato. These beetles then pass through 

 three separate larval stages, in the second stage being coarc- 

 tate and quiescent, taking no food. M. J. Lichtenstein has 

 also, says Riley in his paper, just succeeded in proving that 

 the European Cantharis has a similar "hypermetamorpho- 

 sis," although its mode of life is unknown. Riley has also 

 discovered and figured a singular beetle belonging to an un- 

 described genus and species, which he calls Hornia minuti- 

 pennis. It is allied to the oil-beetle, Meloe, but has remark- 

 ably small wings. It lives in the cells of the mason-bee. 



While many insects of different orders produce sounds in 

 various ways, it is not commonly known that even the chrys- 

 alis of a butterfly (T/iecla) "produces a slight, short chirp." 

 Mi-. F. G. Schild, of Germany, who discovered this fact, ex- 

 plains the noise by the hypothesis that the sound arises from 

 air being pressed and drawn in through the trachea3 on the 

 abdomen and above and behind the eyes. " It appears, how- 

 ever," state the editors of the Entomologists Monthly Maga- 

 zine, "that more than a century ago (1774) Herr Kleeman 

 discovered a creaking noise proceeding from the chrysalis of 

 a similar butterfly." 



In the first part of his studies on the spiders of Malaysia, 

 especially Celebes, comprised in a work of three hundred 

 pages, Dr. Thorell describes a large number of species. The 

 work is being published at Genoa. 



The "Structure and Habits of Spiders," by J. H. Emerton, 

 is an attractive little book, comprising almost wholly the ob- 

 servations of the author, with numerous illustrations from 

 the pencil of this eminent artist. The book is new and fresh 

 in its facts and drawings, and is a valuable contribution to 

 biology. 



Further contributions to the subject of dimorphism and 



