April 29, 1909J 



NA TURE 



26: 



Thu Geological Survey of Great Britain issued in 

 October, 1908, a welcome quarto memoir on " The Higher 

 L'rusl;icea of the Carboniferous Rocks of Scotland," by 

 li. X. Peach, F.R.S. (price 4s.). Four new genera, one 

 being appropriately styled Tealliocaris, and twenty-three 

 iiiw species, are described. The forms are all transferred 

 irom the macrurous decapods to the schizopods, following 

 an opinion early formed by the author, and confirmed by 

 Sars's report in the ChaWcngcr series in 1885. Palaeocaris 

 is interestingly placed in G. M. Thomson's Anaspidte 

 (p. 53), a family erected in 1894 to include a less specialised 

 fresh-water form still living isolated in lakes among the 

 mountains of Tasmania. The illustrations to the memoir 

 show the e.^ccellent preservation of much of the material, 

 and it is pleasant to learn that the work was undertaken 

 by Dr. Peach on his retirement from the Survey directly 

 he was free from pressing official duties. 



Passing to vertebrates, Messrs. F. R. von Huene and 

 R. S. Lull are engaged in a re-consideration of the 

 alllnities of Hallopus, a reptile described by Marsh from 

 Wyoming, and now known to be of Upper Triassic age 

 (.\ni. Journ. Science, vol. x.w., 190S, p. 113). 



Mr. G. E. Pilgrim gives us a new genus of Suidje, 

 Telmatodon, from Low-er Miocene beds in Baluchistan 

 (Records Geol. Surv. India, vol. .\.x.\vi., 1007, p. 45). Mr. 

 1'. B. Loomis shows how the rhinoceros Dicerathcrium 

 was comparatively common in the Lower Miocene of North 

 America in beds where few vertebrates were known until 

 some three years ago (" Rhinocerotidae of the Lower 

 Miocene," Am. Journ. Sci., vol. .xxvi., 1908, p. 51). Two 

 species of Acerotherium, a genus abundant in the .^merican 

 Oligocene, lived on amid a rich variety of Diceratheria. 

 By the close of the Miocene, the latter forms had also run 

 their course. 



Herr Wilhelm Freudenberg introduces the Pleistocene 

 Tihinnccros Mcrcki, var. Hiiiulsheitticiisis, Toula. in his 

 account of the fauna of the Hundshelm cave in Lower 

 Austria (Jahrb. d. I;.k. gcol. Reichsanstalt, Bd. Iviil., 

 1008, p. 220). The animals of this cave, including Mach- 

 airodus, which may have preyed on rhinoceroses and 

 elephants, are held to have lived in the district at first 

 under cold conditions, and then during a warm inter- 

 glacial interval. The striped hyaena occurs (p. 212), a 

 species that goes back far into the Pliocene. The absence 

 of the horse and man also gives the deposit an e.irly 

 aspect. G. A. J. C. 



PAPERS ON MOLLUSCS AND INSECTS. 



"T^HE molluscs of the family Pyramidellida; inhabiting 

 the coasts of New England and the adjacent region 

 form the subject of an illustrated monograph, by Mr. P. 

 Bartsch, published in the Proceedings of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History, vol. xxxiv., parts Ixvii.-c.xiii. Atten- 

 tion is chiefly concentrated on the characters of the shell, 

 although mention is made of some of the soft parts in 

 diagnosing the genera. The new genus Couthonella is 

 proposed for the species hitherto known as Pyramis 

 sirialiila. 



To the proceedings of the .\cademy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia for December, 1908, Prof. H. A. Pilsbry 

 contributes the twelfth instalment of his account of the 

 clausilias of the Japanese Empire, in which a number of 

 new species and subspecies of various sections, or sub- 

 genera, of Clausilia are described and figured. Especial 

 interest attaches to certain species belonging to the 

 section Euphaedusa, such as Clausilia echo, on account of 

 their exhibiting stages in a degeneration-series leading on 

 to the section Reinia. In the same issue Prof. Pilsbry 

 and Mr. Y. Hirase describe a number of new land-molluscs 

 from the Japanese Empire, Including forms from the main 

 island of Japan, the Benin Island, the Ryukyu (Liu-Kiu) 

 Islands, and Formosa. Particular interest attaches to the 

 clausilias and operculated shells from the small volcanic 

 isles of the Tokara group. 



The pteropods and heteropods of the Irish coasts form 

 (he subject of a paper, by Miss A. L. Massy, published 

 as No. 2 of Irish Fisheries Scientific Investigations for 

 1007 (1009). The list includes seventeen snecies of ptero- 

 pods, among which is a new species of Clio (C t^racili!^) 

 NO. 2061, VOL. So] 



and seven other species not previously recorded from British 

 waters. Heteropods, on the other hand, are represented, 

 according to present information, in Irish waters only by 

 a few occurrences of Cariiiaria laniafcki. 



The habits of the British carnivorous slugs of the genus 

 Testacella form the subject of an illustrated note by the 

 editor in the April number of the Selborne Magazine. 

 Special interest attaches to the figure of one of these slugs 

 seizing a worm with its protruded " radula." 



Turning to insects, we have first to notice the first 

 three " leaflets " on injurious insects issued by the Indian 

 Forest Department. Of these, No. i is devoted to the sal 

 bark-boring beetle (Sphaerotrypes siwalikiensis) ; No. 2 

 treats of the moth known as the teak-defoliator (Hyblaea 

 puera) ; and No. 3 describes the teak-leaf skeletoniser 

 [Pyrausia tnachaeralis), which, in its adult condition, is 

 also a moth. As two at least of these insects have been 

 noticed in Nature in connection with other publications of 

 the Forest Department, it will suffice to add that the three 

 leaflets have been drawn up by Mr. E. P. Stebbing. In 

 vol. ii.. No. 7, of the entomological series of the 

 Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in India, Mr. 

 Maxwell-Lefroy discusses the scale-insects, or Coccidaa, of 

 the country, the life-history of three species being illus- 

 trated by coloured plates. None of the Indian species of 

 the group inflicts much harm on crops. 



Brazilian grasshoppers of the subfamilies Pyrgomorphinje 

 and Locustina; (or Acridinoe) form the subject of No. 1661 

 of the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum (vol. 

 xxxvi., pp. 109-163). Fifty-three species are discussed in 

 this paper, among which the author, Mr. J. A. G. Rehn, 

 describes seventeen as new, four new genera being also 

 named and defined. The greater portion of the collection 

 came from Matto Grosso and Rio de Janeiro, and the 

 remainder from the neighbourhood of Pernambuco and 

 Bahia. In the February issue of the Proceedings of the 

 .Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, Messrs. Rehn and 

 Hebard' continue their survey of the Orthoptera of the 

 south-western United States, dealing in this instance with 

 those of New Mexico and Texas. 



On a previous occasion reference was made in our 

 columns to a paper in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia 

 .Academv of Sciences, by Dr. F. Creighton Wellman and 

 Mr. W. Horn, on the' tiger-beetles of Angola. In the 

 same serial for December, 1908, the first-named author 

 gives an account of Angolan oil-beetles (Meloidse), in 

 which special attention is directed to interesting features 

 connected with the habits of these insects. Throughout 

 the driest district of Angola various species of these beetles 

 may be seen in thousands on a roseaceous plant of the 

 tfonus Tribulus, which occurs in enormous masses, and 

 forms almost the sole food-supply of the adult Meloidse 

 of the district. This plant produces large masses of yellow 

 flowers, upon which the beetles cluster. It is remarked as 

 a curious fact that the young of these oil-beetles should 

 feed on the eggs, and later on the larv;e, of orthopterous 

 and other insects, while the adults have such an intimate 

 relation to certain plants, the appearance of the full-grown 

 Moloida; being synchronous with the flowering of the 

 Tribulus, which lasts only for a few weeks. 



.\n important contribution to morphology is formed by 

 a paper on the so-called sclerites of insects, by Dr. G. C. 

 Crampton, published in the Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Sciences of Philadelphia for January. .According to the 

 author, there exists a most confusing want of uniformity 

 in regard to the homology of these small chitinous elements 

 and the names applied to them, this being, apparently, in 

 great degree due to the fact that each investigator has 

 been content to confine his studies to one or two groups 

 of insects. Many important points have been brought to 

 light bv such investigations on the different orders, but 

 thev stand, for the most part, as isolated facts. The 

 object of the investigations undertaken by the author has 

 been to bring these" isolated facts into harmony, and to 

 construct a nomenclature for these structures which shall 

 be applicable to the Hexapoda as a whole. With this 

 object in view, Dr. Crampton first reviews the various 

 theories of his predecessors on this subject, and then 

 furnishes a revised and general svstem of nomenclature. 

 .A further communication on the subject is promised. 



Publications bv the Entomological Bureau of the U.S. 



