8 NATURAL SCIENCE. July, 



Entomologists. The union of the workers in the different American 

 States in such an association must be highly beneficial, and European 

 students of the subject are welcome as foreign members. The address 

 of the President, Mr. J, B. Smith, of New Brunswick, N.J., dealt 

 with the general prospects of the science and the best means for 

 making the researches of naturalists useful to farmers. Several 

 papers of considerable interest were read. 



Systematic work of a high order is turned out by several of the 

 American economic entomologists. The first two bulletins of the new 

 " Technical Series," issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to 

 replace the scientific papers formerly published in Insect Life, are 

 written by Mr. L. O. Howard, and deal with the North American 

 Aphelininas (a sub-family of Chalcididae) and Eurytominae. From the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, Dr. C. H. Fernald has sent us a 

 monograph of the North American Crambidae, excellently illustrated 

 with structural figures and coloured plates. 



The Sun-Haters. 



In his presidential address to the Biological Section of the 

 Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at 

 Brisbane in 1895, Professor Arthur Dendy dealt with some of the 

 features of that part of the fauna to which he has applied the term 

 " cryptozoic." This word is but a few years old, and refers to 

 Kipling's " life of the Middle Jungle, that runs close to the earth or 

 under it, the boulder, burrow, and tree-bole life," and includes the 

 species which, for purposes of protection or in search of food, frequent 

 dark, humid cool haunts, sheltered from the light of day. To give a 

 miore comprehensive definition than this is hardly possible, seeing that 

 the cryptozoic fauna imperceptibly blends with what by way of con- 

 trast may be called the " phanerozoic," just as the littoral fauna of 

 the sea blends with the pelagic, and the pelagic with the bathybial. 



According to Professor Dendy, the members of this fauna have 

 been derived from nearly all the principal groups of the animal 

 kingdom, the only character which they possess in common being 

 their hatred of exposure. So, too, have recruits been levied from 

 many distinct faunistic groups ; but it is possible to classify the 

 members of this heterogeneous mob into four sections, distinguished 

 by their mode of origin, (i) Representatives of typically terrestrial 

 groups of animals which are dominant at the present day. These 

 may be found at all stages of development, and include many insects, 

 spiders, slugs, snails, and the like. (2) Surviving members of 

 extremely ancient groups which are now almost extinct, e.g., Peripatns, 

 and possibly scorpions. (3) Immature forms of terrestrial animals 

 which are not cryptozoic in the adult condition ; or, in other words, 

 the larva; of phanerozoic species. (4) Isolated representatives of 

 typically aquatic groups of animals which have as yet become but 



