180 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 9, 1913 
ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES. 
ACCORDING to a note by Mr. J. J. Walker in 
the September number of The Entomologists’ 
Monthly Magazine, 1913 is to rank as a ‘clouded 
yellow’ year, immigrant specimens of these butter- 
flies (Colias edusa) having reached our southern coun- 
ties in June, and given rise to native broods in 
August. No British specimen of C. hyale had been 
recorded this year up to the date of the note. 
In order to enable planters in Trinidad to cope 
effectually with the native sugar-cane frog-hopper 
(Tomaspis varia), a member of the family Cercopide, 
the Board of Agriculture of Trinidad and Tobago has 
issued a pamphlet (Circular No, 9), drawn up by Mr. 
F. W. Urich, the official entomologist, in which the 
life-histories of this and certain other members of the 
same group are very fully described. Three beauti- 
fully coloured plates illustrate all the stages of the 
species forming the main subject of the pamphlet and 
the adults of its Trinidad relatives. Although re- 
ported to have been originally described from Guiana, 
T. varia cannot be identified elsewhere than in Trini- 
dad, and is accordingly regarded as a native of that 
island. Two charts show that it is most numerous 
in January, when the rainfall is at its lowest. This 
mischievous insect is attacked by two kinds of fungus, 
one of which affords, at present, the best means of 
keeping it in check; and, with this and other agents, 
the author is hopeful that the “plague may be 
stayed” in the near future. 
Although holiday-makers roundly cursed the heavy 
rains of the summer of 1912, they were highly bene- 
ficial, in the opinion of Mr. G. H. Carpenter, as 
expressed in an article on injurious insects observed 
in Ireland during that year (Economic Proceedings 
Royal Dublin Society, August) in reducing the great 
development of insect life due to the abnormally hot 
summer of 1911. 
The editor is indebted to the Rev. R. P. Longinos 
Navas, S.J., for a copy of a synopsis of the Ascale- 
phides, published in the Arxius de l’Institut de Cien- 
cias, Barcelona, vol. i., No. 3. Although these 
Neuroptera, which are related to the lace-wing' flies, 
are generally classed as a subfamily of the Hemero- 
biidz, the author follows MacLachlan in regarding 
them as representing a family by themselves—Ascala- 
phidz. None of these flies are found in the British 
Islands, but they are abundant in many parts of the 
Continent, and enjoy an almost cosmopolitan distri- 
bution. The present synopsis includes diagnoses of 
all the known generic and specific types, several of 
which are named and described for the first time. 
Several important entomological articles have re- 
cently appeared in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia 
Academy, notably one in the May and June issues on 
the grasshoppers of the genus Nemobius. Other papers 
are published in the July issue of Records of the Indian 
Museum, in which Mr. J. J. Kieffer reviews the chiro- 
nomid flies in the collection of the museum, while Mr. 
K. Jordan does the same for the beetles of the family 
Anthribidze. 
In describing a new species (Clomaciella subfusca) 
of the mantispid group of Neuroptera in vol. viii., 
part 2,,of Annotationes Zool. Japon., Mr. W. Naka- 
hara takes the opportunity of reviewing the Japanese 
representatives of the group—eleven in number. 
Copies of two entomological papers from vol. xlvi. 
of the Proceedings U.S. National Museum have been 
received recently, namely one by Mr. F. Knab on 
new species of moth-flies bred from bromelias and 
other plants, and one by Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell on 
new parasitic Hymenoptera of the genus Eiphosoma. 
To the Journal of the College of Agriculture, 
Tohoku Imperial University, Japan, vol. v., parts 4 
NO. 2293, VOL. 92] 
and 5, Mr. Yos’himo Tanaka communicates articles 
illustrated by one plain and one coloured plate, 
Mendelian factors and gametic coupling and repulsi 
in silkworms. : 
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