Miscellaneous. 79 



The area of the island is about 100 miles in length by 40 in 

 breadth. — Comptes liendus de VAcad. des Sciences, tome lxxx. 

 pp. 1224, 1225. 



On Androgynous Diptera. By Dr. Loew. 



The occurrence of characters of the two sexes in different parts of 

 the body of insects has been noticed chiefly in those orders which 

 are generally collected, and more especially in the Lepidoptera. 

 Nearly 30 years ago (in 1846) Dr. Loew described (Stett. ent. Zeit. 

 vii. p. 302) an androgynous specimen of Bi-risnitens, Latr., in whicli 

 the head, thorax, wings, fore legs, and left middle and hind legs 

 presented male characters, while the abdomen with the genitalia and 

 the right middle and hind legs were female. This case, which is not 

 mentioned in Hagen's list of known hermaphrodite insects (8tett. ent. 

 Zeit. xxii. 1861), has hitherto stood alone in the order Diptera. 



Dr. Loew now describes another androgynous Dipteron, namely an 

 example of his Synarthrus cinereiventris, a species of the family Do- 

 lichopodidse from Texas. He describes in considerable detail the 

 distinctive characters of the two sexes of this species, which are com- 

 bined in the hermaphrodite in a way hitherto unrecorded for any 

 insect, the head, body, and wings being entirely of normal female 

 structure, whilst the whole of the legs display the peculiar characters 

 of the male sex fully developed. — ZeiUchrift fur die gesammten Natur- 

 wissenschaften, Neue Folge, Band x. 1874, pp. 75-79. 



The Blind Fish and some of the associated Species of the Mammoth 

 Cave, Kentucky, probably of Marine Origin. 



Mr. F. W. Putnam, in an article published in the Bulletin of the 

 Essex Institute, vol. vi. no. 12, 1874, remarks as follows on the 

 origin of some of the present inhabitants. 



That many or, with two or three exceptions, nearly all of the 

 thirty or forty species of vertebrates, articulates, mollusks, and still 

 lower forms, including a few plants, now discovered in the caves of 

 Kentucky, are of comparatively late introduction, is probable from 

 the fact that they are so closely allied to forms living in the vicinity 

 of the caves. But that the blind fishes, the Chologaster, and a 

 few of the lower forms of articulates, such as the Lernaean parasitic on 

 the blind fish, may have been inhabitants of the subterranean 

 streams for a much longer period, is worthy of consideration on the 

 following grounds : — 



First, the blind-fish family ha? no immediate allies existing in 

 the interior waters *, the only species of the family, in addition to 



* In common with others I have considered the Ileteropygii as be- 

 longing to the same order with theCyprinodontes; but I now have, from 

 further information of their structure, doubts as to their close association 

 witli that group. Thi3 subject will be presented on another occasion. 



