318 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



are confined to Florida and the central and Pacific coast re- 

 gions of North America. 



Allied to the Galeodes is a much larger arachnid, the whip- 

 tail scorpion (Thelyphonus giganteus), which occurs in New 

 Mexico. Dr. J. F. Broughter, of Fort Craig, N. Mew, says 

 that the insect is poisonous, and sometimes fatally so. It is 

 regarded by the Mexicans as poisonous. 



A volume of 455 octavo pages, under the title of " The 

 Rhynchophora of America North of Mexico," by J. L. Le 

 Conte and G. II. Horn, forms No. 90, Vol. XV., of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Philosophical Society. The spe- 

 cies are very numerous, about 10,000 of them being known. 

 The work of Dr. Le Conte upon this group, as evinced by 

 this memoir, as well as earlier papers, indicates unusual 

 originality and sagacity. He studies them from a com- 

 pletely new standpoint ; as lie regards them not as con- 

 stituting a single family, but a higher group represented by 

 eleven families. As the weevils are the lowest type of Cole- 

 optera, they are, Dr. Le Conte claims, therefore, the oldest. 

 They comprise a larger number of forms, and have, survived 

 greater geological changes, than any other groups of beetles. 

 He finds that among the weevils " form, color, and sculpture 

 in many instances are repeated in tribes which, from their 

 geological distribution and method of life, cannot be sup- 

 posed to have any immediate genetic derivation." The views 

 of our author as to the origin of species and higher groups 

 are of interest. He says : " I have no theory to propound 

 regarding this very complex system of cross resemblances. 

 They are certainly not the result of mimicry, and probably 

 not of natural selection, or any other name of an idea which 

 lias yet been suggested. A deeper insight into the phenom- 

 ena of organic nature, which may, perhaps, be acquired by 

 our successors, would give us a more reasonable explanation 

 of these resemblances." Appended to the work is a useful 

 list of the works and articles relating to the injurious species 

 of weevils, prepared by Mr. B. P. Mann. 



"Among all Coleoptera known to science," says Dr. Le 

 Conte, "there is none which has provoked more discordant 

 expressions of opinion regarding its position and relationship 

 than the genus Hypocephalvs" After an elaborate study of 

 the single species known, an inhabitant of Brazil, which forms 



