30 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [February, 



she may continue to lay fertile eggs for years. The fertilization 

 of the eggs of insects takes place at the time they are laid. There 

 is in one end of the shell of the egg, one or more pores known 

 as micropyles. Through these the spermatozoa enter the egg as 

 it passes the opening of the receptacula seminis. In some cases, 

 at least, it is not necessary that an egg should be fertilized in order 

 that the embryo should develop. This has been proven with the 

 Honey Bee. But so far as is known the unfertilized eggs of the 

 bee produce only males" (Comstock). 



A non-sexual reproduction alternating with a sexual repro- 

 duction occurs in certain insects, as plant lice. 



All insects are produced from eggs, and are therefore called 

 oviparous. In some cases, however, the eggs are retained within 

 the body of the mother until after hatching. Such insects are 

 termed ovoviviparous. P. P. C. 

 o 



ANOTHER IMMIGRATION THEORY. 



BY E. P. VAN DUZEE. 



Chancing to pick up a copy of the " Canadian Entomologist"' 

 of November, 1887, while browsing among some old entomo- 

 logical papers — a favorite pastime with me — I lighted on a " Note 

 on Southern Moths found in the North," by A. R. Grote, A.M. 

 Here, after reiterating his " theory" that Erebus odora and other 

 of the southern species of moths that are constantly being re- 

 ported from northern localities are mere " wind visitors or immi- 

 grants;" he says: "This is my theory of immigration from the 

 South ; no other writer agrees to it or advocates it. Right or 

 wrong, it is my own." Whether this theory has been proved or 

 disproved by more recent writers I know not, but the capture of 

 an odora in this city, under somewhat peculiar circumstances, it 

 seems to me might shed a little light on the subject. 



Early in the past season one of our young collectors, Mr. J. 

 C. Will, took an example of this insect in a wholesale fruit house 

 in this city among a large pile of bananas recently received from 

 the South. The thought naturally presents itself: may not this 

 and others of these stray visitants have been introduced through 

 the agency of commercial transportation, either as a pupae or 

 imagos? Many subtropical creatures (spiders, scorpions, centi- 

 pedes, etc.) have been found here in banana cargoes, and why 



