April 1892.] 



PSYCHE. 



249 



live singly, eat only the parenchyma of the 

 leaf from the under side and hide by dav in 

 dry curled leaves that adhere to the twigs or 

 in some other place of concealment on the 

 branch. In this habit they differ from other 

 Nola larvae that I have met with, which do 

 not hide and eat the leaf from the top side 

 only. 



Habitat. Texas (Zeller), Colorado 

 (Grote), Santa Barbara and Ventura Coun- 

 ties, California. It will probably also be 

 found in the intermediate territorv in the 

 canons and arrovos where willows sn- w. 



A Dipterous Parasite of the Toad. 



In the Zoologischer anzeiger, jahrg. 14, 

 no. 379, Dec. 14, '91, p. 453-455, Duncker 

 describes an interesting case of parasitism. 

 A number of common toads were found in 

 the neighborhood of Kiel with their nares 

 eaten out and their heads swollen in the 

 buccal region. The animals moved about 

 languidly holding their heads down and 

 when kept in confinement rubbed their 

 nares against the walls and floor of the 

 terrarium "as if to relieve themselves of 

 an itching sensation." One of the animals 

 thus confined died and was soon afterwards 

 found completely skeletonized. The moss 

 in which it was buried contained many 

 white fly larvae (8 mm. long, 2 mm. broad). 

 These soon pupated and in about 4 weeks 

 gave rise to more than 50 flies which proved 

 to be Lucilia sylvarum. Duncker claims 

 that the eggs or very young larvae are de- 

 posited in the nares of the toad. The larvae 

 first eat their way backwards to the buccal re- 

 gion and finally devour all the soft parts of 

 the animal, even the ligaments of the bones. 

 He expressly states that it is not the weak 

 and sickly toads which are selected by the 

 flies, since he has found infected specimens 

 that had just sloughed their skins and were 

 to all appearances in good health. Further- 

 more none of the infected toads appeared 

 to have been wounded. 



HENRY WALTER BATES. 



It is not in London alone that the death of 

 Henry Walter Bates will be deplored. He 

 was one of the four entomologists — Wallace, 

 Weismann, and Fritz Miiller being the others 

 — who have most distinguished themselves 

 in support of the derivative theory of organic 

 life, and who have gained for it independent 

 evidence from new fields of research with 

 which their names will be indissolubly asso- 

 ciated. With the ex.ception of Weismann all 

 are Europeans who gained their inspiration 

 in Brazil, and it was there that Bates was 

 first brought face to face with the most 

 patent facts of mimicry. 



The world has admired the unassuming 

 attitude of Darwin and of Wallace, as well as 

 their genius, and the same attitude may be 

 claimed for Bates, whose striking contribu- 

 tion to the philosophy of mimicry was mod- 

 estly hidden in a systematic essav on the 

 butterflies of the Amazons, the title of which 

 made no reference to the fact. Had it not 

 been accompanied by colored plates specially 

 illustrative of the theory there broached, and 

 had it not appeared in the heat of the Dar- 

 winian uprise, it would have lain dormant 

 for many a year. Yet he was the first in ex- 

 planation of the facts to offer a theory worth 

 a moment's consideration; it has since re" ■ 

 ceived no correction and no noteworthy 

 modification, and stands today as clear and 

 satisfactory a statement of the whole matter 

 as has ever since been made. 



Bates was born Feb. 8, 1825: at twenty- 

 three he left for Brazil where he spent eleven 

 years in collecting. On his return he pub- 

 lished his Naturalist on the Amazons, which 

 gained him the post of assistant secretary to 

 the Geographical society, which he held until 

 his death, Feb. 16, 1892. His systematic work 

 was mainly in diurnal Lepidoptera and Cole- 

 optera, especially the Carabidae, and, ac- 

 cording to McLachlan. he left behind him an 

 incomplete work on the classification of this 

 family besides copious biological notes and 



