364 



PSYCHE. 



[June 1S90. 



mologia cubana Vol. i containing the lep- 

 idoptera was published between 1S81 and 

 18S6. Vol. 2 containing the hymenop- 

 tera, neuroptera and orthoptera is now 

 passing through the press at the slow rate of 

 a signature of eight pages a month and will 

 not be finished before 1S91. The hymenop- 

 tera and neuroptera are already printed. 

 Vol. 3 will contain the remaining orders, 

 "it"" writes Dr. Gundlach, "my life dure some 

 years more;" — which all will trust maybe the 

 case; indeed when his collections have been 

 transferred he proposes another trip to the 

 mountains of Guantanamo in Eastern Cuba, 

 where he has already secured so many fine 

 collections. 



Insects destructive to water pipes. — 

 And now the coleopterous family Parnidae 

 comes under economic suspicion. Pine- 

 staves of the water pipes of the Ottawa (Can.) 

 water system which have been in use fifteen 

 years are found by Mr. Fletcher, Govern- 

 ment entomologist, to have lost in this time 

 one fourth of. their thickness and in places, 

 and especially at the joints, to have been 

 bored through and through. Mr. Fletcher 

 regards the destruction as due in the first in- 

 stance to the decaying of a very thin layer 

 of the surface of the wood through the chem- 

 ical action of the river water; and then to the 

 removal of the decayed surface by aquatic 

 insects so as constantly to expose a new sur- 

 face to the same action. Beetles belonging 

 to the allied genera Dryops and Macronychtis 

 were found on the injured wood, and in the 

 decayed layer were numerous tracks made 

 by larvae provisionally referred to these same 

 genera; none have yet been bred. Mr. 

 Fletcher thinks their presence in such num- 

 bers may possible be due to the unusual 

 quantity of decaying bark lying in a bay 

 of the Ottawa River, near the inlet of the 

 pipe, where for twenty years logs have been 

 sorted for the lumber mills which gives Ot- 

 tawa its commercial importance. It is now 

 proposed to take the water from a point 

 higher up the river and to use steel pipes. 



Habit of a dragon-fly. — In the Journal 

 of the Bombay natural history society (v. 4, 

 no. 3), Mr. E. Giles records a curious fact 

 which ought to have some interest for entom- 

 ologists. In June iSSS he was standing one 

 morning in the porch of his house, when his 

 attention was attracted by a large dragon-fly 

 of a metallic blue color, about 2^ inches long, 

 and with an extremely neat figure, who was 

 cruising backwards and forwards in the 

 porch in an earnest manner that seemed to 

 show that he had some special object in view. 

 Suddenly he alighted at the entrance of a 

 small hole in the gravel, and began to dig 

 vigorously, sending the dust in small show- 

 ers behind him. "I watched him," says Mr. 

 Giles, "with great attention, and, after the 

 lapse of about half a minute, when the drag- 

 on-fly was head and shoulders down the hole, 

 a large and very fat cricket emerged like a 

 bolted rabbit, and sprang several feet into 

 the air. Then ensued a brisk contest of 

 bounds and darts, the cricket springing from 

 side to side and up and down, and the drag- 

 on fly dartingat him the moment he alighted. 

 It was long odds on the dragon-fly, for the 

 cricket was too fat to last, and his springs be- 

 came slower and lower, till at last his enemy 

 succeeded in pinning him by the neck. The 

 dragon-fly appeared to bite the cricket, who, 

 after a struggle or two, turned over on his 

 back and lay motionless, either dead or tem- 

 porarily senseless. The dragon-fly then, 

 without any hesitation, seized him by thg 

 hind legs, dragged him rapidly to the hole 

 out of which he had dug him, entered him- 

 self, and pulled the cricket in after him, and 

 then, emerging, scratched some sand over 

 the hole and flew away. Time for the whole 

 transaction, say, three minutes." Nature, 

 5 June 1S90, V. 42, no. 1075, p. 135. 



No. 13S-140 were issued 17 March 1890. 

 No. 165 was issued 21 January 1890. 

 No. 166 was issued 14 February 1890. 

 No. 167-168 were issued 20 March 1890. 

 No. 169 was issued i May, 1890. 



