JlLY 10, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



59 



establishment in New York, with live cents 

 in stamps on the envelope!)' 1 am aware 

 that in several of my own published papers 

 the objectionable abbreviations occur, but 

 these (and many other queer things) are due 

 to editorial interference. 



T. D. A. COCKERELL. 

 ' T.ABLETTES ZOOLOGIQUES.' 



To THE Editor of Science : Will you kindly 

 give me space to inquire if any reader of 

 Science knows of the existence in the United 

 States of a copy of the ' Tablettes Zoolo- 

 giques'? This journal was published at 

 Poitier, France, by Aime Schneider. The 

 first volume appeared in 1885, and the third, 

 which I think was the last, in 1892. I have 

 as yet been unable to locate a copy in Amer- 

 ica, and any information will be very grate- 

 fully received. Howard Crawley. 



Wyncote, Pa., 

 •June 1-2, ino.3. 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 

 unusual abundance of a myrupod, parajulus 

 pennsylvanicus (brandt).* 

 During the latter part of August and the 

 first of September, 1902, the walks and drives 

 along the university campus were overrun 

 with a myriapod which proved to be Para- 

 juhts pennsylvanicus (Brandt). Bright, sunny 

 days, which were likewise cool, were observed 

 to bring a greater number of the species into 

 evidence. Complaints were made by residents 

 along the adjacent avenues of the numbers of 

 these ' worms,' as they were called, which cov- 

 ered the sidewalks and terraces and even 

 entered the residences. Often in passing 

 along the paths running in the campus it was 

 found to be difficult, if not impossible, to 

 avoid crushing numbers at every step. They 

 exhibited no general direction to their move- 

 ments, and hence a migration from one por- 

 tion of this locality to another definite locality 

 seems not to be the case. Rather it seems 

 that they were trying to find higher or per- 

 haps dryer ground. When one was taken up 



* Read at Columbus meeting, Ohio Academy of 

 Science, November, l'.)02. 



in the fingers and then allowed to move in a 

 direction opposite to its original direction, it 

 showed no sign of any attempt at orientation. 

 A case similar to this one is found every 

 year on Cedar Point, Sandusky, O., where 

 Fontaria indiani Bollman, immediately prior 

 to and during ovipositing, is found in great 

 numbers along the lowlands on the Bay side. 

 But in the case of the one mentioned above 

 as occurring on the campus, of all the females 

 examined, none contained eggs. Hence this 

 itf not a true parallelism. 



Several cases of extensive migrations of 

 myriapods are on record. In the Zooloyischcr 

 Anzeiger for 1900, Verhoeff records a migra- 

 tion of such extent that railroad trains were 

 stopped, owing to the numbers that were 

 crushed under the wheels and thus caused them 

 to slip. The species in this case was Julus 

 terrestris. Verhoeff also calls attention to a 

 description of an extensive migration of a 

 species of Brachyjuhis, given in the same 

 journal by an Austrian named Paslavisky, 

 who states that in 1879, in Austria, this spe- 

 cies was excessively numerous in a certain 

 district. Verhoeff regards the cause of such 

 movements as due to over-population, and 

 hence an attempt to obviate the results of the 

 law of Malthus. That this is not the cause 

 in all cases is attested by that of the species 

 of Fontaria that I mentioned as occurring on 

 Cedar Point, which is undoubtedly a purely 

 sexual matter. A third record of such move- 

 ments is given in Bollman's ' Myriapoda of 

 North America,' in which, on page 75, he 

 mentions the occurrence of Fontaria virgin- 

 iensis (Drury) in Donaldson, Arkansas, in 

 such numbers as to attract general attention. 

 The adults were found to bear a ratio to the 

 number of young that were observed with 

 them of about one to three hundred. Appa- 

 rently, this movement is due to a third reason 

 — the migration of the adults with the young. 

 Miss Mauck (American Xaturalist, XXXV., 

 447) gives an account of a migration of Fon- 

 taria virginiensis (Drury) but no cause is 

 assigned to the movement. 



To conclude, every one of the cases of ex- 

 tensive migrations in myrinpoda that have 



