CURRENT NOTES. 129 



features of this pest." Vines on rich clay-soils sustain com- 

 paratively little damage, but on light sandy or poor soil the 

 depredations are much worse. Fidia viticida is a native American, 

 and has long been known as a feeder on wild grapevines, &c., 

 and it is only within the last few years that it has become 

 notable as a pest of the cultivated vine. The beetle was first 

 noticed in Kentucky in 1866, and was at the same time or soon 

 after taken in Illinois and Missouri, and is now known from New 

 York State to Florida, and from Texas to Dakota. The life- 

 history and habits are closely worked out, and remedial measures 

 discussed. 



0. ScHMiEDEKNECHT [9] has issued the first fascicule of his 

 new " Opuscula Ichneumonologica," containing analytical tables 

 of the genera of six ichneumonid tribes and of the palaearctic 

 species of the genus Ichneumon. 



Harrington [12] notes the capture of a male wasp {Thyreopus 

 latipes, Smith) with female antennae. 



A. W. Morrill [11] describes and figures a new species of 

 Aleyrodes from strawberry, with details of life-history. 



A. F. Conradi [13] discusses "Remedies for Fleas": creolin 

 being recommended. 



J. GuLDE [5] contributes an important paper on the dorsal 

 glands in Heteropterous larvae. 



R. F. ScHARFF discusses [1] the Atlantis Problem, and con- 

 cludes that Madeira and the A9ores, up to miocene times, were 

 connected with Portugal ; that from Marocco to the Canary 

 Islands, and from them to South America, stretched a vast land, 

 which extended southward certainly as far as St. Helena. This 

 great continent may have existed already in secondary times, 

 and probably began to subside in early tertiary times. Its 

 northern portions persisted until the miocene, when the southern 

 and northern Atlantic became joined, and the A9ores and Madeira 

 became isolated from Europe. They again united with the Old 

 World in more recent times, and were still connected in the early 

 pleistocene with the continents of Europe and Africa, at a time 

 when man had already made his appearance in Western Europe, 

 and was able to reach the islands by land. These conclusions 

 are reached by a study of all the animal classes, by no means 

 least from the insects, which, in accordance with other groups, 

 exhibit mostly South European or North African affinities. 

 Among the forms omitted is the beautiful Notonecta glauca var. 

 canariensis, peculiar, so far as is known, to the Canary Isles. 



It has long been known that remarkable lepidopterous larvae 

 of the genus Epipyi'ops, Westwood (fam. Limacodidae), live, either 

 parasitically or commensally, on the living bodies of certain Ful- 

 goridae (Homoptera). Their nutriment is unknown, and the host 

 is not destroyed by the visitor. The first notice was published 

 in the Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1876, pp. 519-24, pi. vii., on a 



