1865.] Entomology. 463 



certainly have been more satisfactory if we had been furnished with 

 any evidence of these persecutions which are supposed to have led to 

 *3uch important results.* Notes are given of 123 species of Papilionidae 

 belonging to the Malayan Kegion, ranged under the genera Orniihop- 

 tera, 16 species; Papilio, 103 species; and Leptocercus, 4 species; 

 but for these, and the remarks on their arrangement and geographical 

 distribution, we must refer to the paper itself, which is illustrated by 

 seven coloured plates. Unfortunately, however, the upper surface of 

 the wing on one side and the lower on the other, are represented in 

 each figure, and this gives an awkward appearance to the whole, and 

 deprives them of all aesthetic value. 



The difficulty as to what are species and what only varieties, 

 receives an illustration from Mr. F. Smith's paper " On the Species 

 and Varieties of the Honey-Bees belonging to the Genus Apis." (' Ann. 

 and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' vol. xv. p. 372.) Mr. Smith had described 

 twenty species ; Dr. Gerstaecker, with the exception of two species, 

 apparently accidentally overlooked, reduces these to four. In the 

 paper above quoted, its author now limits them to eight. In the same 

 volume of the ' Annals ' (p. 182), is a translation of Professor Schiodte's 

 paper " On the Classification of Cerambyces, with particular regard to 

 the Danish Fauna." The author is patriotic enough to adopt the 

 ordinal names of his countryman Fabricius, and he even finds it 

 " necessary to return to that point to which Fabricius had carried our 

 systematic knowledge, and to continue where he had left off." Many 

 of his suggestions have been anticipated long ago, but the Professor 

 is apparently not aware of Dr. Leconte's contributions to the 

 American Scientific Journals, or of the still later works of M. James 

 Thomson and others. A long account of the Chigoe (Rhyncoprion, 

 or more correctly Sarcopsylla penetrans) is furnished by Karsten to 

 the ' Bulletin de la Societe de Naturalistes de Moscou.' It is only the 

 fecundated females which are parasitic. They establish themselves 

 under the skin, generally under the toe-tails, and soon attain an 

 enormous size ; when all the eggs are developed and deposited, the 

 empty and shrivelled body is supposed to be thrown out, but whether 

 the larvae are developed in the ovary, or from the eggs after deposition, 

 has not yet been ascertained. 



A singular instance of parasitism has been recorded in the 

 ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine ' (vol. i. p. 281). One of the 

 white butterfles (Pieris rapce), on emerging from the pupa, was found 

 to have two little yellow cocoons of Microgaster glomeratus, containing 

 pupae, rolled up in the wings. The butterfly lived for some days, and 

 excepting that the wings never attained their full size, was otherwise 

 perfect. The ichneumon flies, however, it appears, were dead. The 

 editor's explanation is this : — " It is well known that, as a rule, the 



* At a meeting of the Entomological Society (May 2nd, 1864), when this 

 subject was discussed, Mr. Bates said it was not an uncommon thing in this 

 country to see the Pontise pursued by birds. Mr. "Wallace admitted that he had 

 not seen butterflies pursued to any great extent. Major Cox had seen forty or fifty 

 individuals of a moth (Brephos nofha) destroyed by tom-tits in a single morning. 

 Dragon-flies were also suggested as being destructive of butterflies. 



