October 1S93.J 



PSYCHE. 



541 



a single pair of imaginal tubules. The trunk represents the primitive Mal- 



Russian investigator has established the pighian vessel. I would regard both it 



s.i me interesting fact for Tinea pell ion- and the secondary trunk as compara- 



ella and Blabophanes rusticella. tively recent acquisitions, since I find it 



On these cases, avowedly exceptional difficult to see, on Cholodkowsky's sup- 

 even among Tineidas, Cholodkowsky position, why the number of" vessels 

 bases his dinephric hypothesis. The should be so" constant throughout the 

 return in the imago to an apparently order and at the same time agree with 

 simpler condition of the Malpighian the number observed in the older and 

 vessels than obtains in the larva, is re- more primitive orders (Orthoptera, 

 garded by him as a kind of atavism. Neuroptera, Panorpata). Moreover.it 

 To characterize this form of reversion, is generally admitted that the Trichop- 

 which is regular and periodic in its tera stand very near the hypothetical 

 occurrence, he introduces the term ancestral Lepidopter, and it has been 

 "atavisme periodique." But it is clear shown that both the embryo and im- 

 that this atavism, if atavism it be, aginal Trichopter have 6 discrete 

 must extend to ancestral conditions ex- Malpighian tubules. On Cholod- 

 ceedingly remote — postulating 2 as the kowsky's supposition it would be 

 primitive number of Malpighian tubules necessary to regard the urinary vessels 

 in Arthropods- — since the number 2 oc- in the lower orders as less primitive 

 curs only in very few insects, and only than those of the Lepidoptera, an as- 

 in cases where a secondary reduction sumption which certainly has very little 

 from a greater number furnishes a more in its favor when we stop to consider 

 plausible explanation (Coccidae). the extent to which other organs have 



Cholodkowsky assumes that the basal been modified in the Lepidoptera. 



Entomological Notes. — The 13th part 

 of Kolbe's Einfiihrung in die kenntnis der in- 

 sekten completes the first volume of the work, 

 and with it the account of the morphology 

 and physiology of insects ; it concludes with 

 a bibliography of the organs of generation. 

 Although only two of the twelve main divi- 

 sions contemplated have been treated, another 

 volume will doubtless complete the work. 



In the Contemporary review for Sep- 

 tember, Weismann has a deeply interesting 

 article on the All-sufficiency of natural selec- 

 tion, supporting his well known views of the 

 intransmissibility of acquired characters, and 

 in which his main arguments are drawn 

 from the study of ants. "All-sufficiency" is 

 a strong term, and if it were generally con- 



ceded would prove a distinct bar to progress; 

 working hypotheses, on the other hand, lie 

 at its very foundation. 



In recent information regarding the Cain- 

 bridge botanic garden given in the last num- 

 ber of the Harvard graduates magazine, Prof. 

 G. L. Goodale speaks of the damage done by 

 white ants as follows: "In one part of the 

 wall the ants had taken away nearly all the 

 wood, leaving the painted surface untouched 

 and apparently sound. From this wall they 

 had made their way into floor timbers 

 hitherto supposed to be free from any pest." 



Mr. Townsend (Ins. life, 5: 317) identifies 

 the oestrid larva described by him in the cur- 

 rent volume of Psyche, p. 29S. as Cuterebra 

 fontinella Clark. 



