320 



SCIEJS'CE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 317 



heavy, full of eggs, motionless, having not even an 

 embryonic trace of wings. The larvae which are to 

 become males, beside some differences in colors, are 

 much smaller as pupae than those which are to be- 

 come females. As soon as the perfect stage arrives, 

 the males commence their flight, while the females 

 simply emerge from their cocoon, on which they re- 

 main, attracting the males by an odor which they 

 emit, inappreciable to our senses, but shown to exist 

 by the fact that the males will enter an apartment in 

 which a female is imprisoned in a tin or wooden box. 

 The males move their antennae vigorously during 

 flight, often bending them forward, and approach 

 the windows. If these be closed, they go around 

 the house in search of an entrance : they have even 

 been known to descend the chimney. , 



Pairing is accomplished in a very rough manner. 

 Among many Sphingidae the males approach gently, 

 attract attention, departing and returning in circles, 

 gradually diminishing, until union takes place ; but 

 in these the contact is rude, almost brutal, and the 

 female, after the departure of the male, remains 

 motionless, and begins to lay her eggs on the cocoon. 

 O. antiqua, of France, lays its eggs near the cocoon, 

 where they become attached by a secretion which 

 covers them as they are laid. 0. gonostigma lays 

 her eggs near the cocoon, taking hairs from its body 

 to make a bed for them, in alternate layers of hairs 

 and eggs, till all are deposited, to the number of 

 about three hundred. The New York species covers 

 the eggs with a white viscid secretion, solidifying in 

 the air, resembling the mucus of the snail and slug. 

 The eggs are generally pretty, at first round, then 

 indented at the top like a goblet or cup, sometimes 

 with a rose-colored ring (in 0. antiqua), sometimes 

 of a porcelain-white tint (in O. vetusta). 



The larvae escape from the egg by eating through 

 the bottom, where the holes for fecundation are 

 placed. They do not disperse themselves widely. 

 As they live on trees and shrubs, are not large, and 

 eat little individually, they may be numerous upon 

 a single plant. Moreover, almost all are polypha- 

 gous, or will eat many different kinds of plants. In 

 France, however, the O. ericaea lives only upon 

 heaths, and the 0. trigotephras on a species of oak. 



Some species have several broods a year. The 0. 

 antiqua, in Paris, like the New York species, appears 

 in June, and sometimes in October ; others have 

 only a single brood ; but this cannot be made use of 

 in classification or physiology. A given species may 

 have but one brood in the north of Europe and 

 America, and two in the south ; and even in Paris 

 and New York, when September is very warm, a sec- 

 ond brood may appear, which would not occur in 

 manj' other Lepidoptera. In captivity, also, the 

 absence of cold nights changes the epochs of their 

 appearance, besides favoring the development of a 

 second brood. 



Linnaeus says that the male of the Orgyia, know- 

 ing by instinct that the wingless female is powerless 

 to move far, when he finds her on a wall or plant, 

 flies away with her during pairing, and carries her 

 to a place where the young may olDtain food. This 

 we have never seen, and never expect to, as the males 

 are entirely too small and feeble to carry off the 

 much greater bulk of the female. We need not say 

 any thing here of the O. detrita, which resembles 

 much the O. vetusta or leucostigma, and may be the 

 same species. Le Metayee de Guichainville. 



New York, March 32. 



Fossils from Kicking Horse Pass. 



I have to-day received the following very interest- 

 ing communication from Professor Lapworth, on the 

 result of an examination he has kindly made for the 

 survey, of a collection of graptolites from the Rocky 

 Mountains, in the vicinity of the Kicking Horse Pass. 



Alfbed R. C. Selwyn. 

 Geol. surv. Can., March 15. 



I have recently examined the fossils collected by 

 E. G. McConnell, geological survey of Canada (1886), 

 from the dark, slaty shales of the Kicking Horse 

 Pass, Rocky Mountains. There are few species in the 

 fairly large collection, but the forms are generally 

 well preserved, and the fauna represented is a dis- 

 tinctly typical one. The following are the species I 

 have identified : — 



(A) Family Dlchograptidae. 



(1) Didymograptus, sp. uov., allied to Didymo- 

 graptus enodus Lapworth from the Llandeilo 

 beds of Abersiddy Bay, South Wales (see Quart. ■ 

 journ.geol. soc, 1875, plate 35, figs, la, 16). 



(B) Family Glossograp'.idae. jt,/t 



(3) Glossograptus ciliatus Emmons. 



(3) Glossograptus spinulosua Hall. 



(C) Family Diplograptidae. 



(4) Cryptograptus tricornis Carr or C. marcidus Hall. -> 



(5) Diplograptus angustifolius Hall. 



(6) Diplograptus rugosus Emmous. 



(7) Climacograptus coelatus Lapworth. 



There are also a few other forms, doubtful. 



Species of Phyllograptus or Lasiograptus, etc. 



The fact that these graptolites have been obtained 

 from the distant region of the Rocky Mountains gives 

 them an especial interest, as few graptolites have 

 hitherto been noticed from that region. The only 

 notice of graptolites from the western states known 

 to me is that given by Dr. Charles White in vol. iv. 

 (' Palaeontology ') of the ' Report of the geological 

 survey of the hundredth meridian.' Four forms are 

 described by him (loc. cit., pp. 9, 10, et seq.) as 

 having been obtained from some beds of partially 

 metamorphosed shale five miles north of Belmont, 

 Nev. No fossils were found associated with them 

 that might assist in the determination of their exact 

 age ; and they were provisionally referred to the 

 geological date of the Utica slate of New York state. 



These graptolites from the Kicking Horse Pass, 

 under notice, may also be referred to the age of the 

 Utica slate, or at any rate to the Trenton. In the 

 Utica fauna of the United States and Canada the asso- 

 ciation of forms is just such as occurs in the Llan- 

 deilo (lower and middle) of Britain, and some of the 

 forms are common to both sides of the Atlantic. 



It is curious that none of the family of the Dicra- 

 nograptidae (Dicranograptus and Dicellograptus) are 

 represented in this little collection. It is just possi- 

 ble that it may therefore be somewhat older than the 

 typical Norman's Kiln beds, where the Dicranograp- 

 tidae are exceedingly abundant. Neither have we 

 any of the peculiar genera of the Leptograptidae 

 (Coenograptus and Leptograptus, etc.) so prevalent 

 in the Norman's Kiln horizon everywhere. Thus it 

 is by no means unlikely, judging from the evidences 

 at present at our disposal, that the fauna of the shales 

 of the Kicking Horse Pass come from strata answer- 

 ing broadly to the British lower Llandeilo : they are 

 distinctly newer than the Point Levis beds, and be- 

 long to the second Ordovician fauna, but in all proba- 

 bility to the oldest zones of that fauna. 



Chas. Lapwoeth. 



Mason college, Birmingham, March 7. 



