248 SELECTED NOTES FROM 



posterior dorsal portion of the thorax in Hymenoptera is abdo- 

 minal, as, what is sometimes called (incorrectly, I believe,) the 

 meso-thoracic spiracle in this order is always on the dorsal surface, 

 and not between the segments. A spiracle 07i the dorsal surface 

 of a thoracic segment is, so far as 1 am aware^ unknown except in 

 this order, and the anomaly is only to be explained by regarding 

 the surface on which it occurs as abdominal, or, to use Newport's 

 more correct phraseology, thoracico-abdominal. It is, to coin a 

 somewhat awkward term, post-meta-thoracic, a segment ve7itraUy 

 atrophied being only developed on the dorsal surface, and there 

 subtending the posterior ventral surface of the meta-thorax. The 

 phenomenon is so far from being exceptional that I have succeeded 

 in tracing it in, I think, every instance where I have taken the 

 trouble to look for it. Let anyone look for it in Goerius olens 

 after removing the wings and elytra, and he will find it a pre- 

 cisely parallel case — a distinct dorsal plate posterior to the wings, 

 with a spiracle on each side in the centre of its breadth, yet joined 

 to the posterior ventral portions of the meta-thorax, having no 

 ventral arc of its own. 



A. Hammond. 



Flea from Wild Rabbit. — The enlarged antennae make this flea 

 very much resemble that from the mole, but the eye of the former is 

 quite distinct, unlike the Mole-flea, where the organ, if not absent, 

 is at any rate invisible in all my slides from that animal. The 

 lancets of the Rabbit-flea are unusually large, and the teeth remark- 

 ably strong. 



H. E. Freeman. 



Antennae of Flea. — I have several times seen these organs 

 erect in the male insect, more especially, I think, among Mole- 

 fleas. Has any member seen a female with erect antennae ? 



C. F. George. 



Leg of Glow-Worm.— I should be glad to know the use of the 

 membrane marked a (see PI. 42, Fig. 5). 



H. Basevi. 



Glow- Worm. — I do not know for a certainty what is the use of 

 the membranous pads on the foot of the Glow-Worm, but they 

 are evidently the same parts as the pulvilli of the Diptera, which, 



