296 



figures the animal with a short tail. " Many of these cur-dogs," says 

 that writer, " are whelped with short tails, which seem as if they had 

 been cut ; and these are called self-tailed dogs." (Hist. Quadrupeds, 

 5th ed. p. 329.) More than thirty years ago, the gardener of one of 

 my relatives at Thetford, in England, had, by continually cropping 

 the tails of the kittens, originated, as I was credibly informed, a breed 

 of self-tailed or short-tailed cats. It is singular that although Darwin 

 mentions a race of stags " with an antler only on one side," which can 

 only be supposed to have originated from accidental mutilation pro- 

 pagated by hereditary descent, yet that he should assert that " there is 

 not sufficient evidence to induce us to believe that mutilations are ever 

 inherited." (Origin of Species, pp. 123 and 130, Am. ed.) The very 

 frequent and sometimes almost universal absence of the anterior tarsi 

 in certain sf)ecies of dung-feeding beetles can scarcely be explained, as 

 he proposes, by the effects of disuse ; for on that hypothesis we should 

 surely find the anterior tarsi, when present in these species, abnormally 

 short, as in the Lepidopterous Nymphalidte ; whereas, of more than 

 twenty recent Chceridium capistratum examined by myself in 1860, 

 only one had any anterior tarsi, but that one had them fully developed. 

 I suspect that he is mistaken in saying (p. 123) that "in some genera 

 [of dung-feeding beetles] the [anterior] tarsi are present, but in a rudi- 

 mentary condition." Dr. LeConte, indeed, says that " in one genus, 

 Dendropcemon, from Brazil, the tarsi have only two joints, " (Introd. 

 Class. Coleopt., p. 125), but this is a very different thing from a true 

 rudimentary tarsus, such as is found in the anterior legs of Nympha- 

 lid?e, where all the joints are present, but greatly reduced in length 

 and functionally impotent (Argynnis ?), or soldered together with 

 no appearance of any sutures, (other Nymphalidae.) Latreille says of 

 the European genus Onitis, " antici pedes, in foeminis saltern, tarsis 

 nuUis." (Gen. Crust, et Ins., 11. p. 80.) 



Nearly a hundred years ago, the borer that infests the locust (Clytus 

 pictus Drury) was known by Forster " to inhabit the locust in the 

 province of New York." (Quoted by Fitch, N. Y. Rep., 11., § 329.) 

 Twenty-five and probably up to fifteen years ago, it was unknown in 

 Illinois on the locust, although, accordiug to our best Illinois botanists, 

 the locust is indigenous in the southern part of the State. For many 

 years back, it has been gradually working its way into the State 

 westward and southward, destroying the locust-trees as it advances, 

 and has now reached two points (Geneseo and Coal Valley) within 

 twenty and twelve miles respectively of the Mississippi River at Rock 

 Island. In northeastern and central Illinois, the locust-trees were 

 pretty much destroyed several years ago, e. g. near Cnicago, La- 

 Salle, Bloomington, and Jacksonville. In Rock Island they are as 

 yet untouched. Yet as much as six years ago I split a cf imago of 



