278 



BIRD-LICE AS MUTUALISTS. 



Mr. James Weir, jr., iu The American Naturalist for August, 1894, 

 advances the opinion that the true bird-lice are true mutualists. He 

 cousiders most of them absolutely necessary to the health and well- 

 being' of their hosts, and their absence to be an indication of disease 

 in some form or other in those animals on whose bodies they are not to 

 be found. Observation has showed him that the lice immediately 

 abandon the bodies of fowls which are the victims of cholera and 

 kindred diseases. Their office ' seems to be to remove the exfoliated 

 e])ithelium and to prey upon all of the waste products of the skin, as 

 well as to freshen and beautify the feathers. 



OCCUR HENCE OF THE PEAR-LEAF BLISTER-MITE UPON THE PACIFIC 



COAST. 



We learn from the recent California newsi)apers that the pear-leaf 

 blister- mite {Phytoptus pyri) was discovered in California ni July by 

 Mr. Alexander Craw; that it has recently made its appearance in 

 several localities in Oregon, and that it has also been found in Idaho. 

 This IS one of the injurious, species which is very readily transmitted 

 to new localities on nursery stock, since, as has been shown by recent 

 investigators, it leaves the leaves and hibernates iu the axils of the 

 twigs and under the bud scales. The time will come, in our opinion, 

 when fruit-growers will buy nursery stock only from those nurserymen 

 who make a practice of thoroughly fumigating all stock before ship- 

 ment. 



THE OLD OENUS TARANTULA. 



After devious wanderings through the class. Arachnida, Fabricius' 

 genus Tarantula, long familiar to- laymen as applied indiscriminately to 

 certain large, hasiry spiders of the family Teraphosidie, has at last been 

 saddled by Mr. R. I. Pocock upon certain forms belonging to the Pedi- 

 palpi which have gen.erally been referred to the family Phrynidre, a 

 tropical group allied to the so-called whip-tailed scorpions. The 

 family name TarantulidiB is made by Mr. Pocock coextensive with the 

 old family Phrynida*. The type species. Tarantula reniformis (Linn.) 

 he considers to be synonymical with Blanchard's Phrynus pailasn. 

 Where will these researches based upon the law of priority lead us 

 next? 



SYNONYMY CORRECTED. 



On page 372 of the preceding volume of Insect Life, by a clerical or 

 typographical error, the anthomyiid described by Dr. Fitch as Hylemyia 

 deeeptiva is made a synonym of the previously described Phorbia fus- 

 cipes Zett. This latter name should have been P. fusciceps Zett. The 

 error is the more unfortunate owing to the fact that Zetterstedt 

 described an anthomyiid under the name of Anthomyza fuscipes, but 

 this is a very different species from Fitch's. 



