June 1S91.J 



PSYCHE. 



99 



be a secondary condition due to acceleration 

 of development. 



The 10 plates with 127 figures illustrating 

 Prof. Graber's papers are beautifully executed 

 and are by far the most accurate ever pub- 

 lished on the subject. It is to be regretted 

 that Prof. Graber did not introduce larger, 

 clearer and more numerous diagrams. The 

 need of these is especially urgent as it is next 

 to impossible to obtain good surface views 



of the fly's egg, and mental reconstruction, 

 even from such excellent sections as those 

 given in the plates, is no easy task for the 

 reader. 



It is to be hoped that the next investigator 

 who undertakes the study of the Musca egg 

 will make use of the wax reconstruction 

 methods now so succesfully employed by 

 workers in other fields of embryology. 



W. M. Wheeler. 



OENEIS AND ITS EARLY STAGES. 



At the last (May) meeting of the Cam- 

 bridge entomological club Mr. S. H. Scudder 

 spoke of the group of Oeneides as one of the 

 most interesting of butterfly genera, partly 

 because (using the word in a restricted sense) 

 there was no other genus of butterflies in 

 which so many species were common to the 

 Old and New Worlds, but more because it is 

 the only genus entirely restricted to high 

 latitudes and altitudes and widely spread in 

 the world. Eight species occurred in Eu- 

 rope-Asia, of which two or three were also 

 found in North America, which possessed 

 besides at least eight or nine species. One 

 would suppose that it would be one of the 

 last with the early stages of whose life we 

 should be acquainted, and this was the case 

 until recently, but now more or less has been 

 published concerning eight of the species, 

 mostly from observations in this country, 

 and it is understood that Mr. W. H. Edwards, 

 to whom most of this advance is due, has full 

 or tolerably complete histories of two or 

 three more. 



I had the good fortune, he remarked, to be 

 the first to publish an account of the early 

 stages of one of the species of the genus — 

 Oeneis semidea, the only one found in New 

 England, — due to the joint efforts of the late 

 Messrs. Shurtleff and Sanborn and myself, 

 though no one has yet carried the creature 

 through from the egg. Since then most of 



the additions to our knowledge of American 

 species have come from Edwards, but Fyles 

 has published the history of Oe. jntta to 

 which Fletcher and I have added something, 

 and in Europe, where the same species oc- 

 curs, Holmgren and Berg. One of the latest 

 known species, Oe.macounii, is now almost 

 completely known, thanks to Mr. J. Fletcher, 

 who has published an account of it, and the 

 egg and first larval stage have also been de- 

 scribed by Mr. W. Beutenmuller. All that is 

 known of chryxus, iduna, and ivalda, is due 

 entirely to the indefatigable efforts of Mr. 

 Edwards. 



Of the European species also, it so chanced 

 that I was the first to publish anything (a 

 year previous to Berg's account of Oe.jutia) 

 describing the egg and first larval stage of 

 Oe.aello, the alpine species, to which nothing 

 has since been added; and excepting Oe. 

 jutta, before referred to, the early stages of 

 only one other species, Oe. bore, are known, 

 due to the studies of Sandberg. 



Out of sixteen or seventeen species, then, 

 recognized in the northern hemisphere, we 

 now know more or less of the transforma- 

 tions of about half the species not to mention 

 the two or three which Edwards has worked 

 out but not yet published. This is a remark- 

 able showing for a group of butterflies with 

 such a distribution, and brings out several 

 features which are a little puzzling. First, 

 there are two types of surface sculpture in 

 the eggs; the more common is that in 



