ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSOOPY, ETC. 53 



on tlie contrary, use their legs as much, sometimes more than their 

 wings. The Ttpulidce, however, are neither aerial nor pedestrian, 

 and at the same time neither holoptic nor chsetophorous. 



The author's present aim being the settlement of the terminology 

 of the macrochsetae, and by that means the utilization of a set of 

 characters which, he considers, have not yet been sufficiently appre- 

 ciated in descriptive entomology, the rest of his paper is devoted to 

 (1) terminology of the parts of the thorax, (2) terminology of the 

 bristles, and (3) application of the latter to the principal large 

 divisions of Diptera. 



Edible Dipterous Larvae from Alkaline Lakes.* — S. W. Williston 

 describes and figures the imago and larva of the Dipterous insect 

 Epliydra californica, which occurs in very large quantities on the 

 shores of strongly alkaline lakes in the west of America (Nevada 

 soda lakes), so that hundi'eds of bushels could be collected. 

 They are annually gathered by the Indians, who eat them, and 

 are said to get fat and sleek on them. They are dried in the sun, 

 and the shell rubbed off by hand, leaving a' yellowish kernel like 

 a grain of rice. " This is oily, very nutritious, and not unpleasant 

 to the taste .... more like patent ' meat biscuit ' than anything 

 else." 



Development of Phryganids-t — W. Patten found in the earliest 

 stages which he examined that there were a number of germ-cells in 

 the yolk, together vrith an irregular network of protoplasm; all the 

 nuclei migrate to the surface and take part in forming a syncytium, 

 which becomes converted into the blastoderm ; this becomes thickened 

 at one pole to form the ventral plate. True endoderm cells arise by 

 delamination from the ectoderm. During the formation of the 

 embryonic membranes a groove appears in the middle line, which, 

 however, rapidly disappears ; a second depression is soon seen, and 

 then the nervous system begins to be formed ; this is effected by the 

 differentiation of a pair of lateral cords which arise from the division 

 of the ectoderm cells on either side of the neural furrow, and by the 

 addition of a median infolded portion of the ectoderm which may 

 possibly form the cross commissures. Attention is directed to the 

 " wonderful analogy at least " between the gastrular and neural 

 invaginations of the insect and the corresponding ones in vertebrates, 

 and especially birds ; just as in vertebrates with mesoblastic ova 

 there is a neurenteric canal ; and another point of likeness is to be 

 found in the fact that in both groups there is a differentiation into 

 two kinds of nerve-cells. 



Development of Aphides.| — E. Witlaczil, after a somewhat 

 elaborate introduction, divides his essay into a descriptive and a theo- 

 retical portion. 



In the former he describes (1) the development of vivij)arous 

 females in the mother ; in the stage of thirty-two cells thirty cell-nuclei 



* Trans. Connecticut Acad. Arts and Sci., vi. (1884) pp. 87-90 (1 fig.), 

 t Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxiv. (18Si) pp. 549-603 (3 pis.). 

 X Zeitschr. f, Wiss. Zool., xl. (1884) pp. 559-696 (7 pls.l 



