PSYCHE. 
ENTOMOLOGICAL ITEMS. 
Dr. C. V. Rivey calls attention, in the 
American naturalist for August 1882, to 
Doryphora juncta as an enemy of the egg- 
plant, in Georgia. 
Mr. JAmMes T. DEwey records, in the Ez/o- 
mologist for Jan. 1882, the capture of a large 
number of lepidoptera around an electric 
light in Eastbourne, England. 
ACCORDING to a paper by Miss Mary H. 
Hinckley in the American naturalist for 
August 1882, the tree-toad (Hyla versicolor) 
feeds at first upon aphides but later its chief 
food is flies; both kinds of insects are taken 
only when alive. 
A MONSTROSITY in a specimen of JZelo- 
lontha vulgar?ts is described in the Exfomo- 
logische nachrichten tor 15 June 1882. This 
specimen has three feet on the left posterior 
leg. The leg is about two millimetres shorter 
than the corresponding leg on the other side 
of the insect. 
IN THE meeting of the Linnean society of 
Loncon, on 16 March 1882, Mr. Smith show- 
ed a bee caught alive in England, which had 
a profuse growth of the Zsarza form of Cor- 
diceps sphecocephala, a West Indian form, 
the latter genus being closely allied to Cla- 
viceps, or ergot. 
’ Ix THE Extomologische nachrichten for 
Sept. and 15 Oct. 1882 are two short but in- 
teresting communications, one by Bieger and 
one by Gauckler, on the effect of the food- 
plants of lepidopterous larvae on the proauc- 
tion of varieties. The species upon which 
results were recorded are Bombyx quercus, 
Arctia caja and Hadena fist. 
‘‘Messrs. WILKINSON and Lawson, I have 
heard, used to place their rubbish” from flood- 
ing of rivers ‘*in a sieve, with a bag under- 
neath, and then put a little ammonia amongst 
it: the beetles immediately rushed away to 
escape from the fumes, fell into the bag, and 
so were easily eliminated and captured; I 
have never tried this plan, but it seems feasi- 
ble, unless the ammonia should kill the 
407 
smaller and more delicate species before they 
could escape. A basin with steep sides is 
the best vessel in which to examine flood- 
refuse.” ‘*The rubbish may be kept for a 
long times, and yet be productive. It is 
always as full of larvae as of beetles, and 
these will breed out and fresh species keep 
appearing.” —W. W. Fowler in the &xtomo- 
logist, June 1882, v. 15, p. 125. 
IN THE May (1882) meeting of the Lin- 
nean Society of London, Mr. P. H. Gosse 
made a communication ‘‘dealing with clasp- 
ing organs auxiliary to the generative parts 
in certain groups of lepidoptera. After 
preliminary remarks the author mentions his 
mode of manipulation, and proceeds to a 
description of the organs in question, finally 
dealing with the modification of the apparatus 
as investigated in a very considerable num- 
ber of the species of the genera Oruithoptera 
and Papilio.” 
Dr. O. SCHMIEDEKNECHT, of Gumperda, 
in Thiiringen, read a paper at one of the 
monthly meetings of the ‘‘Irmischia,” at 
Erfurt, tecently, a short report of which 
appears in the Extomologische nachrichten, 
15 Nov. 1881, jahrg. 7, p. 321-323; in which 
he enumerated a large number of European 
species of Bombus which are subject to wide 
variatior , describing their variant colorational 
characters, and stating that even the male 
characters, which must be relied on for speci- 
fic discrimination, are variable to some 
extent. Probably similar differences are to 
be detected in our own species. 
Dr. Juttus NATHAN notices the lack of 
sensitiveness of larvae of Lristalzs to bad 
odors, in Kosmos, jabrg. 6, p. 298. Having 
had his attention called to the subject by an 
experiment of Darwin’s, he sought to stupefy 
the larvae of Eristalis tenax, in the same 
way as he had done with lepidopterous larvae. 
The larvae of Eyrzstal7s, however, took no 
notice of small quantities of chloroform; it 
was only after Dr. Nathan used an amount 
of chloroform sufficient to stupefy a child 
