82 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



wine, recommended by Mr. Laddiman on the faith of the 

 'Taxidermist's Manual,' and actually procured a gross of 

 small phials of very clear glass, intending to keep one larva 

 in each ; but long before the one hundred and forty-fourth 

 phial was loaded, those at the beginning of the series had 

 become as black as ink, which seemed so objectionable that 

 I abandoned the attempt, and threw away the specimens. I 

 have since received skins filled with fine dry sand, which 

 continued to escape ; I suppose through the aperture by 

 which it was introduced. The drawers in which such pre- 

 served larvge were deposited presented the appearance of 

 being infested with mites, and constantly evoked the excla- 

 mation : — " I see you have mites here ; you must look after 

 them in time!" The coloured wax I have never tried. — 

 Edward Newman.] 



Notes on the Yucca Borer [Megathtjmus Yucca, Walk.). 

 By Chas. V. Riley, M.A., Ph.D.* 



[The Castnians have always been a favourite group with 

 me, and I have felt a disposition to place them with those 

 familiar Lepidoptera, of which Xyleutes Cossus is an expres- 

 sive example, and which we all seem to recognise by the 

 name of "internal feeders." It is a group marvellously hete- 

 rogeneous in its adult state, and marvellously homogeneous 

 in the larval state. I recollect well the cachinnation I pro- 

 voked, when in 1832 I proposed they should be associated: 

 it was thought a climax of absurdity to place Xyleutes Cossus 

 and iEgenia Tipuliformis in the same category. Mr. Riley's 

 most interesting paper gives me some confidence that the 

 idea is not so far-fetched ; and I hope hereafter, if I should 

 live, to include other and unlooked-for Xylophagans, even 

 among the Micro-Lepidoptera. But I will quote Mr. Riley. 

 — Edioard Newman.] 



The study of aberrant forms in Nature is always inte- 

 resting. They are continually confronting the naturalist. 

 They baffle the syslemalist, and constantly remind him of 

 the necessarily arbitrary nature of his classificatory divisions. 

 Few divisions seem more natural, at first glance, than that of 



* From a Paper read before the Academy of Science of St. Louis, U. S. : 

 communicated bv tbe Author. 



