THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



17 



Glover of Manuscript Notes from My 

 Journal, entitled, " Cotton, and the princi- 

 pal Insects frequenting or injuring the 

 plant." In its twenty-two quarto plates, 

 engraved on copper, is shown the cotton 

 plant in every stage of development from 

 the seed to the mature plant, and in its 

 various conditions as resulting from insect 

 attack or from disease. In association with 

 these figures, twenty-four insects frequent- 

 ing the plant are represented. Several of 

 the species are illustrated in an agreeable 

 prodigality, giving enlarged views of the 

 egg, the larva at different stages of growth, 

 the pupa, the cocoon, the perfect insect at 

 rest and in flight, its under surface, enlarge- 

 ments of parts, and the more marked 

 varieties of the larva and the imago. Al- 

 though not so stated, it is believed that the 

 edition of these Notes was no larger than 

 the others of the series, and consequently, 

 that only about fifty societies and individ- 

 uals have been the fortunate recipients of 

 a copy. 



The A^atural History of the Agricultural 

 Ant of Texas is a volume of 208 pages and 

 24 plates, by H. C. McCook, treating at 

 length of the habits, structure and archi- 

 tecture of this interesting insect. The 

 histological details have been worked out 

 from preparations made by Prof. J. G. 

 Hunt. 



A volume, upon which Baron Osten 

 Sacken has been for a long time engaged, 

 has recently been completed and published 

 by the Smithsonian Institution. The Cata- 

 logue of the Diptera of North America pre- 

 pared by this author and published in 1858 

 was simply a compilation of published 

 names, not claiming synonymic accuracy. 

 It contained 1,800 species, but many of the 

 number were too imperfectly described for 

 identification. The new Catalogue is of 

 such merit as to deserve more than a pass- 

 ing mention. It is fully up to, and in itself 

 materially advances, our knowledge of the 

 Diptera of our country. Its author 

 modestly regards it as only critical in part 

 — so far as the families have been worked 

 out into monographs, and as still remain- 

 ing a mere list of reference to earlier 



writers, in those families which have not 

 been studied, or in which the existing 

 collections are to a great extent still un- 

 named, as in the Culicidce, Chironomidce, 

 ConopidcB, the group of Muscida calypterce, 

 and the section Asilina. Its critical 

 character may be seen from the statement, 

 that of the 102 species of Tabanus enumer- 

 ated in the old Catalogue, only 36 have 

 been adopted in this. 



An admirable feature of this Catalogue 

 is that a large proportion of the species 

 which it records — over 2,000 carefully de- 

 scribed and authoritatively labelled species 

 — are contained in the Collections of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cam- 

 bridge, where every possible care is given 

 to them, and where they are accessible to 

 the student for comparison and study. 

 Most of these are types of Loew and 

 Osten Sacken, or their determinations. 



The remarks of the author on synonymy, 

 nomenclature and priority, seem to me to 

 be most excellent and worthy of serious 

 consideration. In an extended discussion 

 of the merits of the descriptions of Diptera 

 of the late Mr. Walker of the British 

 Museum, he characterizes them as so ex- 

 tremely superficial — descriptive rather of 

 the specimen than of the species, that in 

 his opinion, they should be entitled to no 

 claim for priority whenever they cannot be 

 positively identified without an examina- 

 tion of the type specimen. Thus, of 

 twenty-six species of Dolichopus described 

 by him, not a single one could be recog- 

 nized. The question suggests itself, to 

 what extent might this rule be extended to 

 descriptions in the other order of insects 

 by this author, and in general, to the writ- 

 ings of other authors. 



In considering the number of Diptera, 

 Osten Sacken believes, that rejecting those 

 descriptions which will probably prove 

 irrecognizable, the number of described 

 Diptera of North America, north of Mexico, 

 will hardly reach 2,500 ; that the unde- 

 scribed material at present in collections, 

 if worked up, would perhaps double the 

 number ; and that when the long neglected 

 order sh^ll have received the attention 



