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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of New England, indicate the enormous 

 transporting power that was concerned in 

 their removal. Long Island lies between 

 40 34' and 40 10' north latitude, and the 

 39th parallel is supposed to be nearly the 

 southern limit of the drift ; and, as a rule, 

 toward its southern limit the drift is com- 

 posed of small masses of material, but the 

 dimensions of the Long Island bowlders 

 prove that there may be exceptions to this. 

 The bowlders of the island and of New 

 England appear to be similar in kind, di- 

 mensions, and distribution, and are believed 

 by Mr. Lewis to have the same general origin. 

 They also indicate but little diminution of 

 the transporting power which distributed 

 the bowlders of New England, and which so 

 thoroughly modified its surface. 



A New Entozoon from the Common Eel. 



In the American Naturalist Dr. Samuel 

 Lockwood describes a new parasite which 

 he discovered embedded in the fat, or adi- 

 pose tissue, on the entrails of the common 

 eel. It has a proboscis which it can pro- 

 trude from, or entirely retract into, its 

 worm-like body, as into a conical sheath. 

 This proboscis when extended is in the 

 form of a cone, and is surrounded by rings 

 of hooklets. At the extremity or point of 

 this cone-like proboscis is a minute pore, 

 which probably serves the purpose of a 

 mouth. It is this spiny-armed organ 

 which the animal forces by a slow motion 

 into the fat, in and upon which it subsists. 

 When the cone-like proboscis is withdrawn 

 into the body of the animal, the forward end 

 has a truncated appearance, and the ento- 

 zoon is about one-eighth shorter than when 

 the proboscis is extended. At this time the 

 creature is less than a line in length. Dr. 

 Lockwood has named the object Koleops 

 anguilla. The first word, as denoting the 

 habits of the animal, signifies sheathed- 

 kead, and the second, as denoting its hab- 

 itat, is the technical name for the eel. 

 Aside from the fact that this discovery 

 has a general interest as an item of knowl- 

 edge respecting the internal parasites of 

 animals, it has a special interest to the 

 helminthologist, as it makes the second 

 genus of an order until now limited to one 

 genus. On this point it is better to give 

 the author's own words. Comparing this 



species with the Echinorhyncus gigas, long 

 known to the student of the Entozoa, Dr. 

 Lockwood says : " As to their ordinal rela- 

 tions, both are members of Owen's second 

 class of the Entozoa, embracing the Sterel- 

 mintha or Solid Worms ; and both evident- 

 ly belong to Duvaine's Type IV., Acantho- 

 cephala or Spiny Heads, and to Randolph's 

 Order IV., which bears the same name. 

 Now, in this order there is but one genus, 

 namely, Echinorhyncus, already mentioned ; 

 therefore we put in the order a new genus, 

 to which we give the name Koleops, mean- 

 ing sheathed-head, and species anguilla, be- 

 cause found in the common eel." Besides 

 an extended description, the Naturalist gives 

 good illusti'ative figures of the subject. 



Insects and Flowers. We are indebted 

 to the report in the World for the synopsis 

 of a paper read by Prof. C. V. Riley at the 

 Dubuque scientific meeting, " On a New Ge- 

 nus in the Lepidopterous Family Tincidae, 

 with Remarks on the Fructification of Yuc- 

 ca " one of the lily family. 



Prof. Riley said that Dr. Engelmann, of 

 St. Louis, had this year discovered that our 

 yuccas must rely on some artificial agency 

 for fertilization. The flowers are peculiarly 

 constructed, so that it is impossible for the 

 pollen to reach the stigma, it being gluti- 

 nous and expelled from the anthers before 

 the blossoms open. Prof. Riley, in investi- 

 gating this subject, discovered that there 

 was a small white moth that did the work, 

 and he demonstrated on the black-board 

 how marvellously the little insect was 

 adapted to the purpose. This little moth, 

 which he calls Pronuba yuccasella (yucca's 

 go-between), was hitherto unknown to ento- 

 mologists, and forms the type of a new ge- 

 nus. It is very anomalous from the fact 

 that the female only has the basal joint of 

 the maxillary palpus wonderfully modified 

 into a long prehensile spined tentacle. With 

 this tentacle, she collects the pollen and 

 thrusts it into the stigmatic tube, and, after 

 having thus fertilized the flower, she con- 

 signs a few eggs to the young fruit, the 

 seeds of which her young larvas feed upon. 

 He stated that the yucca was the only en- 

 tomophilous plant known which absolutely 

 depended for fertilization on a single spe- 

 cies of insect, and that insect so remark- 



