76 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Eennes, and comprising among others the following : — A. medicaginis, 

 Dup., A. medicaginis, Bdv., A. charon, Dup., and A. charon, Bdv. The 

 first two of these, as probably also the fourth, Mr, Tutt referred to 

 medicaginis, Bdv. (Mon. des Zyg.), considering them to be possibly 

 forms of Anthrocera lonicera; while the specimens of A. charon, Dup., 

 taken at La Boche in August, 1896, were, he stated, almost indistin- 

 guishable from typical lonicerm. Having shown also some examples of 

 A. seriziati from Collo, and one, with very dark hind wings, from Bona, 

 he said he had no hesitation in referring these to Anthrocera palustris 

 as an extreme southern form. Mr. Tutt next exhibited specimens of 

 Anthrocera fit ipendul a, captured by Mr. W. H. Harwood near Colchester, 

 which showed remarkable colour-aberrations extending from terra-cotta 

 red to orange, as described at length in the account which he had re- 

 cently given of the genus. He remarked on the peculiarity of these 

 specimens, insomuch that they appeared more closely to resemble 

 Lederer's well-known Asiatic races of the species than auy other yet 

 described. Mr. A. H. Jones exhibited a fine specimen of Spharia 

 robertsi, one of the pyrenomycetous fungi, attached to the larva of 

 Charagia virescens? Mr. Percy T. Lathy communicated "A Mono- 

 graph of the genus Calisto"; and the Rev. F. D. Morice, papers 

 entitled " Illustrations of specific characters in the armature and 

 ultimate ventral segments of Andrenag," and "Notes on Andrena 

 taraxaci, Giraud." — J. J. Walker and C. J. Gahan, Hon. Sees. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



1. Biology of the Coprophagous and Necrophagous Diptera. 2. Studies 

 upon Lucilia bufonivora, Moniez, parasite on anurous batrachia. (In 

 Russian.) " Trud 'i russk. entom. Petersburg," 1898, vol. xxxii. 

 pp. 225-79 ; 9 figs. By J. Portschinsky. 

 It has been known for some time past that the larva? of a dipteron 

 (Lucilia silvarum, Meig.) are occasionally found in the nostrils and eye- 

 cavities of toads (Bufo), when the fleshy parts of the head are more or 

 less eaten away. The presence of these lame is merely accidental, 

 the ova being deposited only when the batrachians suffer from open 

 wounds. After referring to this, and giving an historical account (of 7 

 pp.), the author proceeds to recount a similar case in which two species 

 of Rana were attacked so determinedly by another parasitic dipteron 

 that these frogs became almost extinct near Petersburg. In this latter 

 case the larvae were the cause and not the concomitant of the mortality, 

 and the " disease " was apparent in many cases by the presence of 

 deformities, such as a large bump on the top of the head, caused by 

 the masses of larva? beneath. This fly is L. bufonivora, Moniez, and, 

 although practically indistinguishable from L. sylvarum in the imaginal 

 state, differs widely from it in the egg and larval stages. L. bufonivora 

 is double-brooded, and each female deposits about sixty to eighty ova in 

 rows on the backs of the frogs ; the majority of these are broken or rubbed 

 off, but the few that hatch (in about a day and a half) locate themselves 

 in the eye-cavities and nostrils and start at once eating away the fleshy 

 parts circumjacent. The frogs die in about three days, f w K 



