Miscellaneous. 125 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Correction to p. 521 (¢ Annals,’ June 1895). 
Sryce I drew up (on the 19th of April) the description of the new 
Batrachian discovered by Mr. Quelch, I have seen the number of the 
‘Zoologischer Anzeiger’ for April 8, in which Prof. O. Boettger 
describes a new Engystomatoid genus from Halmaheira under the 
name of Oreophryne. I therefore propose to change the name 
suggested by me to Oreophrynella Quelchii.—G. A. BouLENGER. 
On the Production of Males and Females in Melipona and Trigona. 
By J. Perez. 
The few observations that we possess on the subject of the inner 
life of colonies of Melipona and T’rigona were such as to lead us to 
suppose that, in the case of these exotic bees, the production of 
sexual individuals, males and females or queens, does not present 
any essential difference from what we know to take place in that of 
the hive-bee. As a matter of fact, among the large number of 
species of Melipona and Trigona there are some in which the pheno- 
mena take place in a precisely similar manner, and the young 
queens are found existing in the nest at the same time as the males. 
This is the case, for instance, in Melipona scutellaris, of which I 
have observed simultaneously a number of individuals of both sexes 
at the close of autumn, a few days before the whole colony was 
destroyed by the cold. 
On the other hand, a nest of Trigona clavipes, Fabr. (quadrangula, 
Lep.), throughout the many weeks during which I was enabled to 
observe it, contained a fairly large number of males and not a single 
young female. 
From the observation of a little 7rigona from Uruguay, which 1 
succeeded in keeping from the commencement of November 1891 
until the middle of October 1894, and which consequently passed 
through three summers under my eyes, I have learnt some facts 
that were entirely unexpected. 
During the first year the colony produced nothing but workers. 
Though I was every day on the watch, so to speak, for the slightest 
differences that might appear in the shape and dimensions of the 
freshly constructed cells, and lead one to suppose that a queen- or 
male-cell was being produced, I never noticed anything peculiar in 
the building operations, and never witnessed the emergence of any 
but workers. ; 
The following year (1893), about August 10, I noticed in the 
centre of a comb in course of construction a cell wider and taller 
than the ordinary ones, above the level of which it projected by 
about a millimetre and a half. On August 28 the cell was open, 
and I soon discovered the young queen which had emerged from it, 
and which, owing to her light colour still more than to her size, 
was conspicuous against the black background formed by the popu- 
lation of the colony. She lived in the nest until the end of September, 
when she disappeared, having gone out during bright sunshine to take, 
