300 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
of which were present, some swimming freely in the water, 
but the greater part congregated in spherical masses about 
the size of a small marble, each mass being surrounded by a 
semitransparent filmy sort of skin or envelope, through which 
the minute worms might be readily discerned with a pocket- 
lens, tangled together and in a nearly quiescent state. I 
believe them to have been the Vibrio undula of Miiller 
(‘Animalcula Infusoria,’ p. 46, tab. vi. figs. 4—6, 1785), or 
some very closely-allied species; and his figure gives an 
exact representation of the appearance of the congregated 
masses of worms as presented in this instance, this habit 
being characteristic of the species. He speaks of the masses 
being sometimes collected round the branchlets of a conferva 
(as given in one of his figures). The surrounding skin, which 
Ihave alluded to above, I suspect to have been nothing more 
than a pellicle of scum, &c., deposited from stagnant water, 
perhaps rendered thick by evaporation. I was told there had 
been a sudden squall of wind before there came on a heavy 
rain, and my idea is that these organisms must have been 
lifted up by the force of the wind, acting in a gyratory 
manner, from some shallow pool in the neighbourhood, 
reduced perhaps to a little more than a large puddle, in the 
centre of which, from the drying up of the water around, the 
organisms had collected. A boy at the station first noticed 
them (z.e. the above spherical masses) falling on his coat, &c., 
as the rain came on, and shortly after, as the rain fell more 
heavily, the platform, so much as was not under shelter,—so 
1 was told,—was covered with them. A few had been 
observed during a storm some days previous to the fall of 
which the above is an account.” 
[Of course, after giving this subject so careful an investi- 
gation as I have done, with a different result, I cannot 
accept Mr. Jenyns’ solution, but adhere in all respects to the 
opinion I have expressed (Entom. 312, No. 91)—EHdward 
Newman. | 
Rare Hymenoptera at Glanville’s Wootton.—Mr. F. Smith 
exhibited three rare British Hymenopterous insects sent to 
him by Mr. J. C. Dale, of Glanville’s Wootton, in which 
neighbourhood they had been captured. They were Myrme- 
comorphus rufescens (a remarkable species of Proctotrupide), 
Ichneumon glaucopterus and Osmia pilicornis. 
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