226 SUMMARY OF QUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



damping of their prison walls seems almost necessary before they can make 

 their escape. 



Before the eggs are shut in, however, some lurking parasites have 

 utilized the nest for their brood also. From larval intruders found in the 

 nest, Lampert reared no fewer than nine different parasites, — Hymenoptera, 

 Coleoptera, and Diptera. The bee Stelis nasuta is one of the commonest 

 of these thieves, and sometimes four larvae were found in one cell. It is 

 probable that these devour first the food and then the wall-bee larvae for 

 which it was intended. The wasp Monodontomerus nitiilus is an equally 

 common thief; sometimes 36 were found in one cell. Lampert thinks that 

 the mother inserts the eggs through the wall of the nest. These were 

 found sometimes within the cocoon of the wall-bee, sometimes within 

 that of a Stelis intruder. Three Diptera pursue the same tactics e. g. 

 Argyromoeiba sinuata. The most dangerous foes, however, are the Coleop- 

 terous Trichodes alvearius and Tr. apiarius, the larvae of which sometimes 

 bore from one cell to another ; Meloe eryth'ocnemus was also found. 



Scales of Lepidoptera.*— Herr E. Hase discusses peculiar scale struc- 

 tures in Lepidoptera. Ho notes first the tire-spur (Schienensporn), a 

 secondary sexual character, aiding in the mutual attraction of the sexes. In 

 the spur there lies a gland which appears to moisten the olfactory organ in 

 the antennae. The spur is absent in specially well-developed feelers in the 

 male, and on the plump wingless females of Geometrae, and only occurs in 

 both sexes of Heterocerae when they are both capable of flight, and that at 

 the same time of day. Special male scales occur, sometimes hidden and 

 covered with a fragrant secretion, and apparently attractive. In the male 

 of Ornithoptera, &c., a peculiar form of wing is associated with the presence 

 of these scales. The fragrance is scattered by long mobile tufts of scale- 

 hairs, or rubbed off by the so-called rubbing spots (Eeibeflecke). Other 

 hard scales on both sexes of the Indian genus Hypsa appear to produce a 

 shrill sound, as otherwise occurs in the male of Thecophore fovea (Eogenhofer) 

 and of the Indian Caristes membranacea. 



Larva of Smerinthus and its Food-plants.t — Mr. E. B. Poulton de- 

 tails his new experiments on this subject undertaken in order to throw 

 more light on the two questions raised in his previous paper,f viz. — (1) are 

 larval tendencies towards certain colours transmitted ? and (2) is it the 

 colour, and not the substance, of the leaf eaten, that influences the colour 

 of the larva ? To both these questions his numerous experiments point to 

 an answer in the affirmative. 



The second question was tested by sewing together the edges of a folded 

 leaf, so that only one surface, upper or lower, was exposed, and therefore 

 eaten by the larva. The author gives details of his experiments with five 

 batches of larvae raised from eggs which had been laid by moths bred in 

 captivity. 



As to the occasional occurrence of yellow larvEe on leaves of Salix 

 viminalis, various evidence points to the following explanation : — the larvfe 

 are only affected by that part of the plant in close contact with them ; the 

 tint of mature larval life is a resultant of conflicting tints of various periods 

 of larval life ; the ultimate predominance of any tint being due to the 

 relative proportion of larval life passed in such a tinted environment. The 

 strong influence for white, which the apple leaf exerts, is due to the fact of 

 the large size of the leaf, so that the larva even when large can still remain 



* Ber. 59 Versamralg. Deutsch. Naturf. u. Aerzte Berlin, 1886. Cf. Biol. Ceutralbl., 

 vi. (1886) p. 640, and Natiirforsclier, xix. (1886) p. 510. 



t Proc. Roy. Soc, xl. (1886) pp. 135-73. J See this Journal, 1886, p. 429. 



