March, 1912-] MISCELLANEOUS NoTES. 67 



found a great percentage with imperfect egg coverings, having one 

 or sometimes two holes, doubtless caused (as it seems to me) by 

 another insect. In three cases I found the covering entirely removed, 

 leaving a thin outline, and the eggs were entirely absent. I have 

 placed enlarged wax models of my own construction demonstrating 

 the metamorphosis described above in the American Museum of 

 Natural Historv. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



A Membracid and Mimicry. — At Tumatumari, British Guiana, I 

 saw on cashew leaves what appeared to be an aggregation of small 

 black ants. I suspected that they were attending aphids and as I got 

 closer saw what I took to be the aphids, so I held a vial underneath 

 a cluster intending to shake them into it, but " aphids " and " ants " 

 hopped off together. After that I was more careful and found them to 

 be Cyphonia clavigera. The wings were the aphid ; the curious pro- 

 notum was the ant. 



Since this experience I have seen Poulton's remarks in Buckton's 

 Monograph of the ]Membracid?e which are as follows : 



" The remarkable combination of filaments and dilated spheres 

 developed by the pronotum in certain species of the genus Cyphonia 

 mav be compared with the still more extraordinary and complex 

 structures in Bocydium. In the absence of observations on the spot, 

 the most probable interpretation is to suppose a cryptic resemblance 

 to some vegetable structure, such as a spined fruit or seed specially 

 adapted for anchorage in the fur of animals ; or some complex de- 

 velopment of thorn or spine. When we consider how far the Neo- 

 tropical Region surpasses the rest of the world in the amount and 

 varietv of mimetic resemblance in insects we see the outcome of a 

 selective environment which may well have developed cryptic forms 

 more strange and complex than any that are known elsewhere. But 

 the possibility of mimetic likeness in Cyphonia and Bocydium should 

 not be left out of account in the attempt to solve the problem. The 

 fact that no undoubted explanation is forthcoming is by no means 

 surprising; and even when the living insects are studied under natural 

 conditions it is quite likely that a solution may be long delayed. . . . 



