80 Miscellaneous. 



the masses of air whicli fill the digestive tract in order to enable 

 the metamorphosis to take place, as we have shown by our previous 

 studies * ; moreover, in the midst of the granulations resulting 

 from the histolysis of the tissues and of the granulations of reab- 

 sorbed pigment, there were soon perceived a number of Grcgarines. 

 Thus, then, these Protozoa were got rid of like waste matter, in the 

 same way as the products of histolysis. Prom this we may under- 

 stand that each moult not only occasions the regeneration of the 

 normal tissues, but that it also results in freeing the organism from 

 the parasites which cause the denutrition of these tissuos. 



From these facts is to be deduced a series of results, some of 

 which are physiological, while the othei's are of an essentially prac- 

 tical order. In fact if the observers, and this particularly applies to 

 M. Louis Leger t, who have sought for Gregariuoe in the digestive 

 tract of Acridians did not succeed in meeting with these parasites 

 in the case of migratory locusts, while they found them in 

 species belonging to the same group, the reason was that the 

 locusts in question had rid themselves of the parasites by shedding 

 their intestinal cuticle ; between the eedyses they abound in the 

 Parana locust ; they diminish in number after each ecdysis J. On 

 the other hand, everyone is aware that in Europe (in Russia, 

 France, and other countries), in Africa (Algeria, Cape of Good Hope), 

 as also in America (United States, Argentine Republic), great 

 hopes have been founded upon certain parasitic organisms (fungi, 

 bacilli. Protozoa) for arresting the multiplication of destructive 

 insects, and especially of migratory locusts. But we see from 

 these observations that these insects with rapid development are in 

 possession of a very simple means of ridding themselves from these 

 organisms, in being able to regenerate themselves at each stage of 

 their development. Thus we are able to understand the resistance 

 that, under the conditions of normal existence, insects are capable of 

 offering to the contamination or disorganizing action of vegetable or 

 animal parasites. — Comptes Rendus, t. cxxviii. no. 10 (March 6, 

 1899), pp. 620-622. 



* J. Kiinckel d'Herculais, "■ Dii role de I'Air d uis le M^canisme physio- 

 logique do rEclosion, des Mues, et de la Metamorphose cliez les Insectes 

 orthopteresde la Famille des Acridides" (Comptes Rendus, t. c.y. p. 107, 

 1890), 



t Ivouis L(5ger, " Sur nne Gr^garine nouvelle des Acridiens d'Alg^rie " 

 (Comptes Rendus, t. cxvii., Dec. 4, 1893). 



X This Gregarine belongs to the genus Clepsidrina, Hammerschmidt, 

 and we shall term it Clepsidrina paranensis, for the double purpose of 

 recalling the fact that it is found in the country watered by the Parana, 

 and that it infests Schistocerca parnnensis, the migratory locust of South 

 America. It is probable that it also inhabits the digestive tract of other 

 species of Acridians. Although it attains the size of Clepsidrina 

 acridiorum, Leger, and though its deutomerite is consequently four times 

 larger than its protomerite, it differs in tlie general shape of the deuto- 

 merite, -which is ellipsoidal instead of being cylindrical, and in the colora- 

 tion of the granulations of the endocyte, whicli are not tinged with reddish 

 yellow, but are of a uniform yellowish white. 



