THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 165 



inquiries, to which Sir John Lubbock and others have recently called atten- 

 tion, and to which in this country Mr. Riley has contributed by his history of 

 Epicauta and other Meloida. I refer to the questions connected with so- 

 called hypermetamorphosis in insects. In these cases there are changes 

 of form during the larval period greater than exist between larva and 

 pupa, or even between larva and imago, in some insects. There are also 

 slighter changes than these which very many larvae undergo ; indeed, it 

 may safely be asserted that the newly-hatched and the mature larvae of all 

 external feeders differ from each other in some important features. The 

 differences are really great (when compared to the differences between 

 genera of the same family at a similar time of life) in all lepidopterous 

 larvae, as well as in all Orthoptera which have come under my notice. No 

 attempt to co-ordinate these differences, or to study their meanings, or to 

 show the nature of their evident relationship to hypermetamorphosis has 

 ever been attempted. 



Not less inviting is the boundless region of investigation into the habits 

 of insects and their relation to their environment. The impulse given to 

 these studies by the rise of Darwinism, and the sudden and curious 

 importance they have assumed in later investigations into the origin and 

 kinship of insects, need only to be mentioned to be acknowledged at once 

 by all of you. The variation in coloration and form exhibited by the same 

 insect at different seasons or in different stations, .'• sports," the phenom- 

 ena of dimorphism, and that world of differences between the sexes, bear- 

 ing no direct relation to sexuality ; mimicry also, phosphorescence and its 

 relations to life, the odors of insects, the relation of anthophilous insects 

 to the colors and fructification of flowers, the modes of communication 

 between members ot communities, the range and action of the senses,* 

 language, commensalism — these are simply a few topics selected quite at 

 random from hundreds which might be suggested, in each of which new 

 observations and comparative studies are urgently demanded. 



The fundamental principles of the morphology of insects were laid 

 down by Savigny in some memorable memoirs more than sixty years ago; 

 the contributions of no single author since that time have added so much 

 to our knowledge, notwithstanding the aid that embryology has been able 

 to bring. Nevertheless there remains many unsolved problems in insect 



Notice Meyer's beautiful studies on the perception of sound by the mosquito. 



