232 THE entomologist's record. 



The subject is too large to be settled in a single article. I am not 

 an entire believer in the smoke theory ; its action seems too 

 partial. We can see how smoke affects lichen-feeders, which are 

 among the first to disappear : but the causes which have led to the 

 abandonment of vast tracts of country by such species as E. tithonus, 

 E. hyperanthus, P. megaera, V. io, E. lanestris, A. caia and many others, 

 must have been widely different, although I can make no satisfactory 

 suggestion as to their nature. 



guRRENT NOTES. 



Mr. H. 0. A. Vine expresses the opinion (International Journal of Mi- 

 croscopy, April), that it may be said with some certainty that the larvfe of 

 the following species of DijDtera prey upon aphides : — Syrphns luniger, S. 

 topiarius, S. halteatus, S. ribesii, Catatomha pyrastri, and, in all probability, 

 Plafycliirns alhiiuaniis. In the course of his dissections of the imagines 

 of the Syrphidae, Mr. Vine's attention was " frequently arrested by the 

 pollen-grains which are invariably present in all parts of the alimentary 

 system, from the a3sophagus to the rectum, and even in the excreta." 

 His " observations on the stomachs of several species of Syrphns, 

 Eristalis and Rhingia,. leave no doubt that in all these, pollen constitutes 

 the bulk of the food ingested, and it is found in the oesophagus, in the 

 sucking stomach, in the digestive stomach, and in the alimentary canal 

 in varying conditions, which indicate plainly the progress of digestion." 

 Only three kinds of pollen were found ; one of these is, without much 

 doulDt, that of some species of Doronicum, or leopard's bane ; another, 

 that of some near allies of Lathyrns ; while the third could not be 

 identified. The pa2)er should be read by students of Diptera. 



According to Grote, who described the external structural features of 

 Megathymus yticcae in 1S75, this species shows more moth than butterfly 

 characters in the imago. No butterfly has such a tibial armature. 

 Grote proposes for the group the fauiily name Paleohesperidae, and 

 regards it as an especial American link, in a line of development which 

 would run : Hesperiidae, P aleoJiesperidae , Castniidae, Cossidae.. Riley's 

 later studies of the insect in all stages, lead him to the conclusion that 

 Megathymus is rather to be considered a butterfly, and with this con- 

 clusion Scudder agrees. As compared with the Hesperiidae, however, 

 Grote insists that the moth characters are everywhere more apparent, 

 and obtain so largely that the balance seems turned in that direction, 

 so that it should be excluded from the butterflies. The Paleohesperidae, 

 like the Citheroniidae and the Arzainini, are instances, according to 

 Grote, of the survival in the American fauna, of intermediary structural 

 types in the Lepidoptera. 



Dr. Pabst, of Chemnitz, draws attention to the fact, that the question 

 of the origin of the squeaking tone produced by Achcrontia atropos, has 

 not been finally solved. He recapitulates the observations of Keaumur, 

 Swinton and Landois ; the theory of the latter, that the sound is 

 produced 1 )y air, forced from a sucking chamber (situated at the anterior 

 end of the abdomen) through the proboscis, is contradicted by the ob- 

 servation of Taschenberg, who found that the sound was emitted by an 

 individual in a bee hive, whose proboscis and abdominal pouch were 



