JUM 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



155 



i'our Tears in the Arctic Eegions,' by Otto 

 Sverdrup; translated into English, 2 vols., 

 London, 1904). E. DeC. Ward. 



Harvard University. 



NOTES ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



As if we did not have enough names for the 

 orders of insects, Mr. A. E. Shipley generously 

 gives us seven more.* These are presented 

 for the sake of having the names of all the 

 orders terminate in ' -ptera.' The new names 

 are Apontoptera for Collembola, Lipoptera for 

 Mallophaga, Ellipoptera for Anoplura, Psocop- 

 tera for Psocidse, Embioptera for Embiidse, 

 Ephemeroptera for Ephemeridffi, and Paran- 

 europtera for Odonata. He appears to have 

 overlooked the fact that the mayflies already 

 had two ' -ptera ' names in Plectoptera and 

 Anisoptera (Steph.). His new term, Ephem- 

 eroptera, has already been used in the same 

 sense some fourteen years ago. If the terms 

 Aptera and Neuroptera, which in the past 

 covered all sorts of creatures, can now be ap- 

 plied to one order, why can not Archiptera or 

 Pseudoneuroptera be restricted to the Odonata, 

 and Synaptera to the Collembola; these latter 

 names have had a much more exclusive mem- 

 bership. Nothing is done by Mr. Shipley with 

 the Hemiptera, although it is nearly as hetero- 

 geneous as the Neuroptera of Linne. However, 

 there are ' -ptera ' names (from 1835) for the 

 four principal groups. 



Now if the ' -oura,' ' -gnatha ' and ' -poda ' 

 partizans extend their nomenclature to the 

 various orders, the requirements of science 

 may be met. 



A recent book by Georges Guenaux is a use- 

 ful compendium of European economic ento- 

 mology.f It forms a volume, in G. Wery's 

 ' Encyclopedie Agricole.' About 100 pages are 

 devoted to worms, the remainder to entomol- 

 ogy. One chapter is devoted to structure and 

 classification, then follow chapters on insects 

 injurious to all crops, to cereals, to beets and 

 clovers, to garden crops, to fruit trees, to the 

 vine, to forest trees, to horticulture, in houses, 

 to domestic animals and man, beneficial in- 



* ' The orders of insects,' Zool. Anz., XXVII., 

 259-262. 



t ' Entomologie et Parasitologie Agricole,' Paris, 

 1904, pp. 580, figs. 390. 



sects, destruction of injurious species, and 

 niyriapods and arachnids. The economic 

 treatment is given with each injurious species. 

 A great many of their remedial measures 

 have been but little tried in this country. 



Professor C. B. Davenport has given us an 

 instructive account of the habits of certain 

 Poduridffi affecting the sea-beach.* Three 

 species inhabit the beach between high- and 

 low-water marks. At high tide they are in 

 the sand to a depth of sis or more inches ; as 

 the tide falls they come to the surface and 

 sport about on the pebbles. He interprets 

 their almost continual jumping movements as 

 useful to increase respiration, and shows that 

 they leap into the wind, and not before it. 

 When the tide rises they bury themselves in 

 the sand, and Professor Davenport thinks that 

 they feed, while thus submerged, upon particles 

 of organic matter in the sand. 



The peculiar wavy motion of centipedes has 

 long excited even poetic minds to the wonder 

 of how they managed to utilize all their legs 

 in such a harmonious way. E. Eay Lankester 

 has investigated the matter and arrives at 

 several interesting results.f The legs move 

 in groups or waves. Each wave includes a cer- 

 tain definite number of legs, apparently con- 

 stant for each species. In the forms studied 

 each jvave contained from eight (in Peripatus) 

 to sixteen members (in the millipede). The 

 number of waves in a species depends upon the 

 number of legs and the number of legs in the 

 wave. Pie shows that in millipedes the waves 

 of each side are opposite or synchronous, that 

 is each leg of a pair moves just as its fellow. 

 While in the centipedes each leg of a pair is 

 in an opposite position from its fellow, so that 

 the waves are symmetrically alternate. In 

 the millipedes the body does not aid in loco- 

 motion, but in the centipedes the motion is 

 partially due to the undulations or wriggling 

 of the body. This fact indicates the more 

 complex nature of the centipede. 



* ' The collembola of Cold Spring Beacli, with 

 Special Reference to the Movements of the Podu- 

 ridse,' Cold Spring Harbor Monographs, II., pp. 30, 

 1 pi., 1903. 



I ' On the Movements of the Parapodia of 

 Peripatus, Millipedes and Centipedes,' Quart. 

 Journ. Mier. Science, March, 1904, pp. 577-582, 

 1 plate. 



