1 895-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 323 



DEPARTMENT OF EGONOMIG ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by Prof. JOHN B. SMITH, ScD., New Brunswick, N. J. 



Papers for this department are solicited. They should be sent to the editor, Prof. John 

 B. Smith, Sc.D., New Brunswick, N.J. 



Insects as Pollenizers. — In the course of my studies on this subj'ect I 

 have examined the vestiture of quite a number of species of insects habit- 

 ually found among flowers, and have been interested to find that in many 

 of them, notably the Diptera, compound hairs, similar to those found in 

 the Apidae among the Hymenoptera, are present. This is especially true 

 of the Bombyliida2 and Syrphidae — "Bee-flies," and "flower-flies," — and 

 quite a variation in the character of the vestiture has been observed. In 

 the Coleoptera some Cetoniids have the hair roughened though without 

 processes in the species e.xamined by me. My studies have been neces- 

 sarily upon limited material, and attention is called to the subject here for 

 the benefit of others better situated to carry this line of study further. In 

 my forthcoming Report some of these specialized hairs will be figured. 



The Katydid's Orchestra. — Under this caption we find in "Science" for 

 September 20th, a note by Mr. George M. Gould, of Macon County, 

 North Carolina, which indicates that entomological knowledge is not par- 

 ticularly well distributed in that region of the country, and also that per- 

 haps not all papers on insects are referred to the entomological editor. 

 After describing the method of stridulation and the sounds produced, 

 Mr. Gould, who assumes that there is only one "Katydid," questions 

 whether the difference in sound which he noted, might not be due to a 

 difference in sex, seemingly ignorant of that almost fundamental fact that 

 in the order Orthoptera the females are mute, and that his suggestion is 

 an impossible one. It is bad enough to find absurd questions in news- 

 papers ; but when we find them in a professedly scientific journal, it 

 always raises the question in the minds of those not specialists in other 

 branches, — are those other subjects treated of with as much knowledge 

 as this one of which we know something? From the description given, 

 Mr. Gould evidently had never heard the true Katydid at all, and as he 

 gives no sort of idea what the observed specimens looked like, we caimot 

 say whether he had one or two species, and whether he had Microcen- 

 Irum, Scudderia or Amblycorypha under observation. 



Mr. Scudder claims, commenting on my criticism in "Science" for No- 

 vember I, p. 591, that the genera, exclusive of Cyrtophyllum, mentioned 

 by me are not properly called "Katydids," and he may be quite right. 

 Comstock, however, in his "Introduction," and later in his "Manual" 

 expressly calls them all " Katydids," and if this is an error, it is one that 

 is being drilled into every student of entomology in the institutions where 

 these text-books are used. 



