The Zoologist— June, 1870. 2187 



description of his Philonix* fulvicollis, mentions that it 'exhales a perceptible 

 odour, resembling that of ants or bees' (Fifth Report on Noxious Insects of 

 New York, p. 3). I do not remember to have noticed this odour in any of the 

 winged species I have reared." 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited two remarkable forms of Hymenoptera from the Rocky 

 Mountains, the Masaris vespoides of Cresson, and Pterochilus o-fasciatus of Say. 



The Secretary exhibited a mole-cricket sent to the Society by Mr. A. P. 

 Falconer, who found it running about the cabin of his daahbeeh on his return 

 from Philae to Alexandria. The specimen had been compared by Mr. M'Lachlan 

 with the descriptions in Mr. Scudder's recent paper in the first volume of the 

 Memoirs of the Peabody Academy, and he believed it to be Gryllotalpa cophta, 

 the Gryllus cophtus of De Haan, figured by Savigny, Descrip. de I'Egypte, 

 Orthoptera, pi. 3. 



The Secretary read the following note on the spectrum of the fire-fly, 

 extracted from the Journal of the Society of Arts : — 



" The spectrum given by the light of the common fire-fly of New Hampshire 

 is, according to Mr. C. A. Young's observations, perfectly continuous, without 

 trace of lines either bright or dark. It extends from a little above Fraun- 

 hofer's line C in the scarlet, to about F in the blue, gradually fading out at 

 the extremities. It is precisely this portion of the spectrum that is composed 

 of rays which, while they more powerfully than any other affect the organs of 

 vision, produce hardly any thermal or active eff'ect. Very little, in fact, of the 

 energy expended in the flash of the fire-fly is wasted. It is quite different with 

 our artificial light. In an ordinary gas-light, it is proved that not more than 



* Query, Philonips, not Philonix, which is a hybrid, half Greek, half Latin : the 

 author himself gives the derivation, " ^(Aoj, a lover ; VixJ/, snow." Dr. Fitch writes the 

 name of the family Cijniphida, in lieu of Cynipidse, probably on the hypothesis that 

 Cynips is derived from vi-^; but query, whether snow enters into the composition of 

 Cynips : I always supposed it was a compound of l^" in which case Cynips, gen. Cynipis, 

 fam. Cynipidee, are correct. I may add that Dr. Fitch has altered Prof. Westwood's 

 Biorhiza into Biarhiza. The latter change is designedly made, for (5th Keport, p. 1) the 

 author says. " I suppose this name to be derived, not from |S('o;, life, as its orthography 

 would indicate, but from f3iai, injury, and p'll^cc, a root, and if so it should be written 

 Biarhiza, instead of as we find it in books." Upon this I may remark that the name may 

 as well be derived from ^(Oj and pi^a,, in the sense of living in the root, as from jS/a 

 and pilia, in the sense of injurious to the root ; and even if the latter be the true 

 derivation, I should like to submit, for Dr. Fitch's re-consideration, whether the 

 remedy (Biarhiza) is not worse than the disease (Biorhiza), and whether the name 

 should not be written Biorrhiza instead of as we find it in books. At p. 16 of the 

 same Eeport, Dr. Fitch describes a new beetle under the name Leiopus Querci (adding 

 that "it is very closely related to the Facetious Leiopus"), and at p. Si, a new Aphis 

 under the name Eriosoma Querci : I believe the word querci as the genitive of quercus 

 does once occur in a writer or> husbandry in the third century of the Christian eera, but 

 query whether it was worth while to have dug out this singularity ; why not have been 

 content with the ordinary genitive quercus ? — J. W. D. 



