November 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



639 



Great interest was aroused at the time, 

 ofciefly by reason of the tlien regarded ano- 

 inalousness of its habitat, but also by reason 

 •f certain other features more or less peculiar, 

 auch as the apparent absence of female 

 medusae, and yet the occurrence of young 

 apparently arising directly from eggs. 



It has since been observed in several other 

 localities and under a similar set of condi- 

 tions, namely, in artificial tanks, or aquaria 

 «sed for the cultivation of the large vrater 

 lily, Victoria regia, a native of South Amer- 

 ica. Records of such occurrence have been 

 made at Lyons and at Munich, in 1901 and 

 1905 respectively. In all these cases it has 

 appeared and behaved in very much the same 

 way as in London, and the same anomalous 

 disparity of sex has been noted. 



The discovery of the medusa, apparently 

 the same species, though on this point I am 

 not yet prepared to state definitely, in this 

 •ountry is naturally, therefore, a matter of 

 »ome interest to students of animal distribu- 

 tion, and it is the hope of the writer that 

 additional facts bearing upon several of the 

 problems as yet unsolved may be secured. It 

 was a matter of pleasure, therefore, to under- 

 take, with the cooperation of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries, to secure all the data and material 

 which could be had. Thus far only a begin- 

 ning has been made, and this preliminary 

 aotiee is only intended to announce the gen- 

 eral facts, reserving for a later contribution 

 a fuller and more detailed account of the 

 history of its occurrence. It may be noted in 

 closing that, as in former cases, only male 

 medusae have been observed. And, further- 

 more, that no foreign plants have been intro- 

 duced in these aquaria for several years, and 

 that the Victoria regia has never been grown 

 here. 



P. S. — A communication was received by 

 the writer dated September 30, stating that 

 the medusae had ^suddenly " disappeared as 

 mysteriously as they came," and that not a 

 aingle specimen could be found where for 

 weeks they had been abundant. 



Chas. W. Haegitt 

 The Zoological Laboratory, 

 Syracuse University, 

 September 20, 1907 



GAMBUSIA in new JERSEY 



Professor John B. Smith has called atten- 

 tion to the introduction of Gambusia affinis 

 in New Jersey waters as a check to the devel- 

 opment of the mosquito, as neither he nor his 

 assistants have met with it in their investiga- 

 tions. It was, therefore, with considerable 

 interest that quite recently Messrs. H. Walker 

 Hand and O. H. Brown assisted me in finding 

 this little minnow in large numbers in Teal's 

 Branch of Pond Creek, a small tributary of 

 Delaware Bay at Higbee's Beach. We also 

 found it very abundant in Ngw England 

 Creek, another tributary of Delaware Bay 

 just north. There it was associated with large 

 numbers of mostly young or small Fundidus 

 heteroclitus macrolepidotus, Lucania parva, 

 Cyprinodon variegatus, Menidia menidia no- 

 tata, Eupomotis gibhosus and Palwmonetes 

 vulgaris. The streams mentioned are mainly 

 brackish, though fresh near their headwaters, 

 more or less shallow with muddy bottoms, 

 though with even a clear and gentle current. 

 The males of Gamhusia were equally abun- 

 dant with the females, though the latter were 

 usually larger. The occurrence of Plethodon 

 erythronotiis at Higbee's Beach is also inter- 

 esting. Henry W. Fowler 



Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 Philadelphia, Pa. 



color sports among the insects 

 In the August 16 number of Science Mr. A. 

 Franklin Shull puts on record the occurrence 

 of a pink katydid, Amhlycorypha ohlongifolia 

 DeG., which was taken near Detroit, Mich., on 

 August 12, and he invites others to place on 

 record their captures of similarly colored in- 

 sects. Professor J. B. Smith has, in years 

 past, taken several pink katydids in the pine 

 barrens of southern New Jersey, and on Au- 

 gust 1 of the current year I took a male speci- 

 men of the above species at Lahaway, Ocean 

 County, New Jersey. None of Professor 

 Smith's specimens retained their delicate 

 color more than a few weeks at most and the 

 Lahaway example lost most of its pink color 

 in about two weeks, though the head, pro- 

 notum, wing veins and parts of the legs are 

 up to this date still a decided pink. The 



