Novembi-r-December l&?3- 



PSYCHE. 



119 



ENTOMOLOGICAL ITEMS. 



Mr C T a. Porter published, in tlie 

 American 'naturalist for December 1SS3, a 

 „ost thoroughly unscientific report on some 

 experiments "to test the function of the anten- 

 nae of insects. 



The BulUfin d-insectoloffle agricoU for 

 Julv-Septen.ber contains an interesting ac- 

 count of the exhibition of insects held Last 

 July in the palace of industry, at Paris to- 

 gether Nvith a list of the prizes and medals 

 awarded to exhibitors. 



The November numero of that enterpris- 

 ing ma-azine, the Kansas City rer,e-.v, con- 

 Jn,, besides other interesting art.c es, not 

 pertaining to enton.ology. an agreeable paper 

 Lv T. Berry Smith on '-Natural science m the 

 ,7th centuiv," and an abstract, by Dr. C : \ . 

 Riley, on "Emulsions of petroleum and their 

 value as insecticides." 



Circular no. i of the Department of en- 

 tomology of the New York state musenni of 

 natural history, issued by Mr. J. A. Lintner 



in October, contains notes upon the chinch- 

 bu.. B/issus Icucof ferns, and its attack upon 

 the"-rops of portions of St. Lawrence county 

 New York. An enlarged figure of the insect 

 and directions for checking its depredations 

 are "iven. Whether these insects have done 

 'any'^erious damage to crops in Massachusetts 

 this year, or not, I do not knows but on .8 

 March the low land between Belmont ami 

 Cambridge vyas swarming with tliem. G : V. 

 \G.MN WE have the unpleasant duty of re- 

 cording the death of one of our leading Amer- 



, .\f Dr lohn L. LeConte, 

 ican entom )logist,. ui.jon.i 



whose numerous publications on North Amer- 

 ican coleoptera have rendered the systematic 

 ,tudv of these insects so easy, died at his 

 hom'e in Philadelphia, 15 Nov. 1S83. 1 he 

 December numero of the BnlM,n of the 

 Brooklyn cutoniologieal society contains a 

 portrait of Dr. LeConte, and an obituary 

 notice by Mr. F. G. Schaupp. The notice 

 .vliich appears in this numero of Psvc^.E 

 was originally written, at the request otDi. 

 A. S. Packard, jr.. for the entomological de- 



partment of the American natnyaUst. wliich 

 department Dr. Riley has been editing. The 

 exclusion of the article by Prof. E : D. Cope 

 one of the editors of the Amcrica,t natural- 

 ist, against the protest of Dr. Riley, has 

 caused the latter's withdrawal from that maga- 

 zine The notice having been oftered to 

 Psyche with this explanation, we are pleased 

 to publish it as a token of the high esteem in 

 which we held the late coleopterist, and of 

 our appreciation of the competency of the 

 distinguished author to write such a notice as 

 shall command respect from any journal in 

 the land. We had intended to write a notice, 

 which we will now omit. 



At \ recent meeting of the French ento- 

 mological society. Dr. Laboulbfene instanced 

 a cas^e in which dipterous larvae had been 

 vomited by a woman thirty-nine years old, 

 under the care of Dr. E. Pichatof La Rochelle^ 

 Specimens of the pupa, and of the fly hatched 

 from them {Cuytoneura stabulans Fall.), 

 were exhibited to the society. The woman 

 had been troubled for some days with bron- 

 chitis and very fetid breath, and finally, after 

 a severe attack of coughing, vomited twice^ 

 Dr Pichat afterward found in the basin used 

 a hundred to a hundred and fifty of these 

 larvae; and the circumstances as related by 

 him leave no serious doubt of their source 

 thouc^h he was not present during the vom.t- 

 in- but only called immediately after it. 



This larva, according to Laboulbene, is 

 well known, and is ordinarily found in de- 

 composing animal and vegetable matter, in 

 mushrooms, etc., and has also been reared 

 from caterpillars and hymenopterous larvae. 

 The possibility of the existence of such flies 

 (muscariae) in the human body was formerly 

 Lenerallv accepted, but has lately been denied 

 by Davaine. Experiments have proved says 

 Dr Laboulbene, that such larvae, introduced 

 into the stomach of animals by a fistula, have 

 been discharged alive in the excrement, one. 

 two, or even three days \^W.. - Science. 23 

 Nov. 18S3, V. 2, p. 697. 



The eollowing notes upon the medicinal 

 use of preparations of Blatta orientals are 



