494 NATURAL SCIENCE. ^^^ 



The habits of tlie Sand Wasp [Ammophila snhulosa) form the 

 subject of a paper by Dr. P. Marchal in the Archives de Zoologie 

 Experimentale et Gcnerale (vol. x., p. 23). The female, as has long 

 been known, captures caterpillars which, after paralysing with her 

 sting, she carries to the nest to furnish food for the grubs. The 

 details have been carefully observed by Dr. Marchal, who states 

 that the wasp inserts her sting at intervals along the median ventral 

 region of the caterpillar, so as to paralyse the ganglia. He proved, 

 by subcutaneous injection, that Ammophila does not bite her victim 

 with her mandibles, as Cevcevis and Philanthus do to the bees and other 

 insects on which they prey, feeding themselves on the juices of the 

 body and the contents of the alimentary canal. However, Ammophila 

 was seen to bathe her tongue in the "salad" disgorged by the 

 caterpillar, and, therefore, her instinct cannot be regarded as entirely 

 due to a disinterested care for her offspring. In wasps which do not 

 so carefully pick out the nervous centre for attack, the poison of the 

 sting is stronger than in Ammophila, and in others with that instinct ; 

 it appears, therefore, that the venom becomes weakened as the 

 instinct is perfected. Dr. Marchal has no doubt that the very highly 

 perfected method of attack practised by Ammophila is developed from 

 such a comparatively clumsy mode of dispatch as is adopted by 

 Philanthus and Cevcevis. 



Further light has been thrown on the question of the primitive 

 insect-larva, discussed in an article in Natural Science for June. 

 Professor A. S. Packard [Zool. Anz., vol. xv., p. 229) calls attention 

 to the caterpillars of the American moths, Lagoa and Chvysopyga, 

 which, alone among the Lepidoptera, have rudimentary pro-legs on 

 the second and seventh abdominal segments. The homology of 

 these with the normal pro-legs seems indisputable, and, according to 

 Professor Packard, shows that this larva " is a survivor of an ancient 

 and very generalised type, and represents, as no other known cater- 

 pillar, the polypodous ancestor of all Lepidoptera." 



A REMARKABLE habit of Certain grasshoppers is recorded by Dr. 

 F. Werner [Zool. Anz., vol. xv.,p. 58). Some when captured, others 

 if kept for any length of time in captivity, bit off and sometimes 

 devoured portions of their legs. The insects observed were of the 

 genera Ephippigera, Barbitistes, Saga, and Locnsta. 



In the last number of the Annals and Magazine Nat. Hist. (ser. 6, 

 vol. X., pp. 121-128, pi. xii., 1892), Mr. Edgar A. Smith has an 

 interesting paper on the shells of Victoria Nyanza. These mollusca 

 closely resemble those of the basin of the Nile, and no such remark- 

 able forms as occur in Lake Tanganyika have yet been met with. 

 Victoria Nyanza does not possess a specialised molluscan fauna like 



