ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 39 



Development of Adoxus vitis.* — M. Jobert has been studying the 

 generation of this, next to Phylloxera, most dangerous enemy of 

 viticulture. A smaller and a larger form are to be distinguished, but 

 dissection shows that they are both females. A little above the point 

 where the ovary joins the oviduct, a spermatheca opens by a duct ; 

 it forms a well-developed glandular organ without any copulatory 

 pouch. Two long tubular glands also open into the vagina. The 

 idea arises that the males died before the females came out, or that 

 they do not resemble the females ; however, the author was on no 

 occasion able to detect the presence of spermatozoa in the copulatory 

 pouch. One hundred insects were collected, of which 50 were dis- 

 sected and found to be unimpregnated females ; the others were kept 

 alive and isolated. After some time they laid each from 25 to 30 

 eggs ; two were immediately killed, and still found to be without 

 spermatozoa. The eggs that were laid were fertile. 



As against the theory of parthenogenesis we have to note the 

 possibility of hermaphroditism, for at the moment of oviposition the 

 tubular glands are well developed, and contain a mass of a refractive 

 substance, which, when highly magnified, resolved itself into a 

 prodigious quantity of vibratile rods, one-hundredth of a millimetre 

 long. 



Colouring Matter from the Willow-tree Aphis.t— Mr. C. J. 



MuUer finds that the abdomen of Lachnus viminalis — an Aphis which 

 feeds on the juices of the bark of the willow-tree — is filled with hard 

 granules, like grains of sand variously coloured, green, red, and 

 yellow. A gentle heat fuses them, and the fused mass on cooling 

 exhibits under the polariscope all the characteristics of salicine. 

 This is best seen by digesting the insects in pure benzole, the deep red 

 solution then obtained being afterwards evaporated on a glass slide. 

 The author considers that the colouring matter belongs entirely to 

 the juices of the tree on which the insect feeds, and that it is not in any 

 way manufactured by the Aphis (except in so far as animal heat and 

 the digestive process may influence it), so that if this opinion is 

 correct, it would account for Dr. Sorby not finding in the red Apple 

 Aphis the physical and optical properties of the colouring matter of 

 the Cochineal insect. The latter feeding upon a plant altogether 

 different from the apple, the character of its colouring matter will 

 necessarily differ. 



y- Araclinida. 



Liver of Spiders.^ — Dr. P. Bertkau states that the gland which 

 has been so called, lies in the hinder part of the body, where it is 

 divided by the heart and intestine into two halves ; in most species it 

 completely invests the generative organs and spinning vessels. The 

 gland is follicular in structure, the separate follicles being united 

 into larger masses by the tunica propria. The cells are large and 

 cylindrical, and they contain a quantity of large and smaller spheres, 



* Comptes Eendus, xciii. (1881) pp. 975-7. 



t Proc. Eastbourne Nat. Hist. Soc, ISth Nov., 1881 (6 pp.). 



X Zool. Anzeig., iv. (1881) pp. 543-4. 



