ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 141 



Chromatin Maturation in Spermatogenesis of Locusta viri- 

 dissima.— Otto L. Mohe (Arch. Biol, 1919, 29, 579-752, 5 pis,, 

 9 figs.). There is in the spermatogenesis a multiplication-period, in 

 which the primitive sperm-cells give rise to primary spermatogonia, and 

 these to secondary spermatogonia. Then there is a maturation-period, 

 with two maturation-divisions in the two generations of spermatocytes. 

 There is a monosome (or genuine unpaired chromosome) which is 

 divided longitudinally in all the divisions except the first maturation- 

 division, where it passes undivided into one of the daughter-cells. This 

 is an indication of the fact that the first maturation-division is a 

 reducing division. It is probable that an ovum (with 14 + 1 chromo- 

 somes) fertilized by a spermatozoon (with 14 ordinary chromosomes and 

 a monosome) will develop into a female, while one fertilized by a sperma- 

 tozoon without a monosome will develop into a male. J. A. T. 



Insect Life of New Zealand Mountain Station. — F. W. Hilgendorf 

 {Trans. New Zealand Inst., 1918, 50, 135-44), Two important 

 factors in the environment are dead sheep and white flowers, for these 

 are correlated with the two most striking features of the insect life — 

 namely, blowflies by day and moths by night. Apart from birds the 

 only native land vertebrate is the common lizard {Lygosojna moco), but 

 fish in the lakes and streams are numerous. The introduction of trout 

 must have made an enormous difference to the insect and probably to 

 the bird population of the district. Hudson has shown that the 

 stomachs of sixty trout taken from various localities contained 4804 

 Neuroptera, 662 other insects, and twenty-eight other animals. An 

 account is given of the insects of various associations — the tussock grass- 

 land, the lake and swamps, the river-bed, the shrub-land, the forest, and 

 the rocks. The short paper contains many interesting notes. There is 

 the diving dragon-fly, Somatochlora smithii, which picks gnat-larvre from 

 the surface of the water, immersing its head ten or twenty times in a 

 minute. When the blowflies do not find a dead sheep they are urgently 

 impelled to any place where there is the faintest scent of animal matter. 

 " I have seen Calliphora quadrimaculata so violently impelled to lay her 

 eggs somewhere' that she has done so on a bicycle-tyre where it had just 

 been pressed with a perspiring hand." J. A. T. 



Mutation in Coccidse. — K. Kunhi Kannan {Trans. Entom. Sac. 

 London, 1918, 130-48, 4 pis.). In Coccns viridis Green collected in 

 Mysore when the pest first appeared there in 1912 there were seven 

 segments in the antennae. But specimens collected in 1913 and after- 

 wards, though undoubtedly C. viridis in other respects, showed in the 

 antemiEe a reduction to three segments by the coalescence of the terminal 

 five into one. In Java, besides the typical C. viridis, there are two dis- 

 tinct types, with very variable but usually eight antennal segments, 

 highly unstable and with a host of intermediate forms. The author 

 brings forward evidence to show that Pidvinaria psidii, also very variable 

 in size, antennas, and anal plates, is a mutating species from which 

 C. viridis and its variants have been derived directly or indirectly. 



J. A. T. 



