RECENT LITERATURE. 207 



C. M. Weed. The Spinif Elm Caterpillar (New Hampshiro Coll. Agric. 

 Exp. Sta. 1899, Bull. 67, pp. 123-141, IG figs.). 



This Bulletin will be of interest to British lepidopterists as embody- 

 ing information about the habits, in America, of a butterfly only too 

 rare with us. EuvaneHsa antiopa (commonly icnown in America as the 

 "Mourning Cloak") is extremely injurious in some of the eastern 

 States to the foliage of elm trees — photographs of this damage are 

 presented to the reader — but feeds also on willow, poplar, and, rarely, 

 on haeUberry [Celtis occidental is), birch, pear, and rose. 



Like some other of its allies, it has a wide distribution, ranging 

 over "the entire breadth of the northern hemisphere, below the arctic 

 circle as far south as the thirtieth parallel of latitude," that is, from 

 Canada to Bermuda and Mexico, Europe, Japan, &c. 



The damage done to elms and poplars, though only occasional and 

 limited in area, is sometimes very great, Prof. Lugger observing that 

 they were so numerous upon elms in Michigan " that branches were 

 broken by their weight." 



The Bulletin concludes with a notice of the parasites and enemies 

 of the insect, and remedies against its devastations. — Gr. W. K. 



Anton Handlirsch. Wie vielen Stigmen haben die Rhynchoten? (Verh. 

 Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien, 1899, sep. p. 1-12, figs. 1 & 2). 



After briefly reviewing the work of Dufour, Mayer, Schiodte, 

 Hansen, and others, and discussing the position and structure of the 

 stigmata in various Khynchota, the author sums up his researches as 

 follows. 



The fundamental type in Rhynchota is — two pairs of thoracic stig- 

 mata (meso- and metathoracic) and eight pairs of abdominal stigmata 

 (segments 1-8). This type embraces the whole of the Homoptera, 

 except the more or less degraded Psyllidae, Aphid* (? Aleurodidae), and 

 Coccidee, in which a more or less considerable progressive reduction 

 (from behind forwards) of the abdominal stigmata occurs, which reaches 

 its maximum in the Coccidte. In waterbugs an inconsiderable modi- 

 fication, taking in account the necessary adaptation to special condi- 

 tions of existence, takes place, which is increased in the landbugs, in 

 which there is a tendency to atrophy of the first pair of abdominal 

 stigmata. Only the absolutely whigless group of PediculidiB, strongly 

 modified by their eminently parasitic manner of life, deviate consider- 

 ably from the original type, the first two pairs of abdominal stigmata 

 and those of the metathorax having vanished. 



We find, also, an astonishing antithesis between the plant parasites 

 and the animal parasites, of which the former are obviously derived 

 from the Homoptera, the latter probably from the Heteroptera, if 

 indeed they belong to the Rhynchota at all. 



We regret that tiie Direction of these Verhandlnnijen still find it 

 convenient to issue the author's copies with a separate pagination, 

 thereby creating two references for the same work, with no con- 

 comitant compensating advantage. As the separate copy only is 

 before us, we are unable to indicate the correct pagination. — G. W. K. 



