No. 395.]| REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. QOI 
now in press, will be withdrawn. The identity of Dactylopius vastator 
with D. filamentosus was lately discovered by Professor J. D. Tinsley, 
who is about to publish an article on the subject. Æuphoria lon- 
gana, the plant on which Diaspis euphorie was found, is properly a 
Nephelium. T. D. A. COCKERELL. 
The Corpora allata of the Orthoptera. — Heymons describes 
(Sitzber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss., 1899, Nr. 30) two small bodies, the 
corpora allata, lying immediately above the cesophagus in the head 
of Bacillus rossii. At first sight they appear as if they were a second 
pair of pharyngeal ganglia of the sympathetic system, as they lie 
immediately above the paired visceral nerves. Sections, however, 
show that, while they lie on these nerves, they are non-nervous in 
structure. They are vesicular in nature, composed of a single layer 
of columnar epithelium, the cavity of the vesicle being filled by a 
stratified chitine, apparently molted by the epithelium. In develop- 
ment these corpora arise as ectodermal ingrowths from the ventral 
surface, on the boundary between the mandibular and maxillary seg- 
ments. From these ingrowths a pair of small cell masses, at first 
solid, bud off and gradually pass dorsally to the definitive position. 
Concerning the function of these structures, which have been seen 
in Hymenoptera and other forms by other students, Heymons has 
little definite to offer. Experiments by extirpation of the structures 
from living insects showed that they apparently are not organs of 
equilibration, while the absence of sensory hairs would seem to sug- 
gest that they are not sensory in structure. The absence of ducts 
and of concrements and excretory granules in the protoplasm would 
militate against a glandular nature. The suggestion is made that 
they were originally peripheral organs and that, with their migration 
to an internal position, they have lost their primitive significance. 
Systematic Position of the Fleas.— Dr. Heymons, in a short 
paper (Zool. Anz., Bd. XXII, p. 223), gives his opinions upon this 
. mooted question. He claims that Krapelin’s views of the homolo- 
gies of the mouth parts are erroneous, there existing in all stages a 
labrum, and a pair each of mandibles and maxilla, the latter with palpi 
andalabium. The wounds produced by these animals are not caused 
by the upper lip, but by the mandibles which are worked by two pro- 
tractors and two retractors. Anatomical structure goes to show that 
these forms are to be regarded as forming a distinct order (Sipho- 
naptera), and that Puliciphora, often considered as an annectent form 
