228 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [May, 'll 



A NEW HEMILEUCA. At the November 2ist, 1910, meeting of the Man- 

 chester (England) Entomological Society, as reported in the Entomo- 

 logist (London) for January, 1911, Mr. J. H. Watson exhibited "a 

 new moth belonging to an aberrant group of the Saturnidae (HemileucJ 

 sp.) allied to H. neunwegeni (H. Edwards), the specimens bred from 

 pupae collected in the neighborhood of the Truckee Pass, on the Cal- 

 ifornia-Nevada divide of the Rocky Mountains." 



FLIES AND DISEASE. At the December, 1910, meeting of the newly 

 organized Helminthological Society of Washington, Dr. C. W. Stiles 

 discussed the subject of rural sanitation with special reference to the 

 disposal of faeces. In comparing the relative merits of the dry and 

 wet systems of disposal, he said : "Flies feed and breed in the dry sys- 

 tem. In one place about 80 privies were examined. Although lime 

 was furnished free, it was only used generously in three cases, and 

 flies were breeding in these places as in the others. The faeces are 

 collected in wagons and buried; burial under a foot of soil being recom- 

 mended. The carts carry and distribute flies. Experiments showed 

 that flies developed and crawled up to the surface from fly-blown 

 faeces buried under six and a half inches of sand ; they came through 

 17 inches in 24 hours ; and flies issued after burial under 48 inches of 

 sand. Flies were obtained even after burial under six feet of sand. 

 In the last two cases, the sand used was not sterilized but was pure 

 sand carefully selected. These are final arguments against the dry 

 system. The system favors the sporulation of amoebae. Flies can 

 bring to the surface and distribute amoebae spores or typhoid bacilli. 

 Under some circumstances privies may be more important than the 

 manure piles as breeding places for flies." SCIENCE, Feb. 3, 1911. 



EXHIBITION OF MODELS OF MEMBRACIDAE. At the meeting of the 

 New York Academy of Science, Section of Biology, Dec. 12, IQIO, Mr. 

 Ignaz Matausch exhibited a series of six enlarged models in wax which 

 he had prepared for the American Museum of Natural History, as well 

 as a series of twenty-three colored drawings and a collection of typical 

 specimens which had been sent him by Professor F. Silvestri, of 

 Portici, Italy. The Membracidre, or tree-hoppers, are among the most 

 interesting of insects. Very little is yet known concerning their life 

 histories, a subject to which the speaker said he had devoted consider- 

 able attention. They are remarkable for their extraordinary variation 

 in the form of the prothorax. In order to make an enlarged model 

 it is necessary to dismember the insect and to prepare drawings of the 

 different parts to a selected scale. The separate parts are then copied 

 in clay; plaster molds are then prepared and casts made in wax. 

 These are then finished, the details put in, and the whole put together 

 and colored. Science. 



