694 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



The males are apparently unable to distinguish which of their com- 

 panions are females, as they very frequently attempt to copulate with 

 one another. They have often been seen to die while still attached to 

 the female." 



Congo Floor-Maggot.* — J. Everett Dutton, J. L. Todd, and Cuth- 

 bert Christy report on a blood-sucking Dipterous larva found in the 

 Congo Free' State. It lives in the huts of the natives, burrowing by day 

 in the floor, and coming out at night, like a bed-bug, to suck blood. A 

 large brown fij—Auchmeromyia luteola F. — often found in the huts, is, 

 perhaps, the imago of the larva reported on. 



Culicidas of Cameroon and Togo.f — K. Griinberg, in view of the 

 great importance of the Diptera in relation to disease in tropical Africa, 

 gives an account of the distribution of various Culicida? from Cameroon 

 and Togo. The list is made up from material in the Berlin Museum, 

 and consists of twenty-one species, which, though not exhausting the 

 fauna, is probably representative. 



Fleas and Disease.^ — C. F. Baker has shown that the fleas of rats 

 in the warmer regions of the earth are close relatives of the flea specific 

 to human beings, and thus far more likely to bite human beings than 

 are the fleas in the colder regions, which are only distantly related to 

 Pulex irritans. It is now necessary to know if any of these southern 

 rat-fleas — of which there are a number of species — voluntarily bite 

 human beings. The author refers to the supposed relation of fleas to 

 bubonic plague, and the news that Carrasquilo, of Bogota, has found the 

 bacillus of Hansen in the intestinal canal of fleas. 



Ovary of Termites.§ — G. Brunelli describes the ovary and the 

 oogenesis in Termes lucifugus. The growth of the oocyte is peculiar 

 when compared with that in other insects ; it resembles in part what 

 has been described in Molgula among Tunicates. The ovary is panoistic 

 without nutritive cells, and this implies that there is a vitellogenous 

 formation on the part of the oocyte itself. 



Notes on Larva of a Coreid Bug.|| — N. Annandale describes the egg 

 and early larval stages of a bug, probably Dalader acutkosta Amyot et 

 Serv. An interesting note upon a Hymenopterous parasite of the 

 family Chalcididas, found within the egg-cases of this bug, is given. 

 No apertures, save the extremely minute micropyles, were observable, 

 and consequently it is to be concluded that the eggs of the parasite 

 are of extremely small size. 



Peculiar Organ in Phryganids.lf — F.Ris calls attention to a very 

 peculiar and enigmatical structure on the last abdominal segment of the 

 males of Oecetis notata and 0. testacea, which was also observed by 

 MacLachlan. It is an exclusively cuticular structure, with honey comb- 



* Liverpool School Trop. Med. Memoir xiii., 1904. pp. 49-56 (1 pi.). See Biol. 

 Central bl., xxv. (1905) pp. 431 2. 



t Zool. Anzeig., xxix. (1905) pp. 377-90. 



X Amer. Nat., xxxix. (1905) pp. 507-8. See also Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum, xxvii. 

 (1904). § Atti (Rend.) R. Acca.l. Lincei, xiv. (1905) pp. 121-6 (2 figs.). 



|| Trans. Entomol. Soc. London, 1905, pp. 55-9 (1 pi.). 



% Viert. Nat. Ges. Zurich, xlix. (1905) pp. 370-4 (1 pi. and 2 figs.). 



