404 



Sitodrepa panicea is now a cosmopolitan sj^ecies. It is sometliing of a 

 museum pest and breeds also in stored farinaceous products, becoming 

 also somewhat of a pest in stored drugs of different kinds. It feeds, 

 therefore, upon both animal and vegetable substances. 



THE ^VEEVILS OF THE TERTIARY. 



Mr. Samuel H. Scudder has published in the Proceedings of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History (Vol. xxv, pp. 370-386) a i)reliminary no- 

 tice of the tertiary Rhynchophora of North America. In his work upon 

 fossil insects, he has discovered an unexpectedly large number of tertiary 

 Ehynchophora, about 880 specimens having passed through his hands. 

 More than half of them are from Florissant, Colo. Mr. Scudder has 

 monographed the group, and his paper is now printing. The present 

 paper is published by permission of the Director of the IT. S. Geological 

 Survey and contains the generalizations and summaries of the work 

 minus the dry descriptive details. 



NEW APPLICATION OF THE TERM " WIRE-WORM." 



In this country the term "wire- worm" is almost universally applied 

 to the larva) of beetles of the family Elateridse, on account of their 

 lengthened cylindrical shape and hard, chitinous covering. Occasion- 

 ally also it is applied to certain of the cylindrical Myriopods of the fam- 

 ily Julida). In South Africa and the Australian colonies, however, we 

 notice from recent colonial papers that the Liver Fluke {Strongylus 

 contortulns) is known to stock-raisers by this same popular name of 

 wire-worm. The matter of popular names is one of considerable impor- 

 tance to the economic entomologist, and all new names, however local, 

 should be placed on record, with the proper identification, in some ento- 

 mological journal. We invite correspondence in this direction. 



FEATHER FELTING. 



There is occasionally sent in to the National Museum or the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture a sample of the felting of bits of feathers into the 

 substance of bed ticking or pillow casing which is said to have been 

 done by some insect. This felting is frequently very beautifully done, 

 and the inside of the cloth next to the feathers appears like a velvet 

 tissue. Ordinarily the breaking up of the feathers which results in 

 this felting is done by Attagenus piceus, a Dermestid beetle which is 

 particularly fond of feathers. We have just received a very fine speci- 

 men from Lucy C. Eaton, of Truro, Nova Scotia, in which the work was 

 done by Tinea pellionella, one of the commonest of the northern clothes 

 moths. It must be remembered in these cases that the felting is not 

 done by the insects, but by the mechanical action of the feather barbules 

 themselves. When the feathers have once become broken up into 

 small bits by the action of the insects, then through the constant press- 



