NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 57 
strating at once that the hawks referred to by Mr. Stearns were 
the latter birds, which are not uncommon in that part of the State. 
I deem it of sufficient importance that an error in bird history so 
serious as Mr. Stearns has made should be set right, and not be 
permitted to pass unchallenged or accepted as fact. 
I may be permitted to add that I have ‘‘ inquired into the mat- 
ter” for the past forty years, and I have yet to know of the first 
well authenticated instance of the nest and eggs of the Pigeon 
Hawk having ever been found in any part of Massachusetts. 
That it may breed in some mountainous and wild regions is, of 
course, possible, and my inability to trace it is only negative testi- 
mony. The horizon of one man is at the best very limited, and 
many ornithological facts occur that are not dreamed of in his 
philosophy. If any one else has “inquired into the matter” more 
successfully, I shall be very glad to be informed thereof. —T. 
BREWER. 
PARTHENOGENESIS IN THE Pura Strate oF Insects.—In Vol. XV., 
No. 8, of the “ Memoirs of the Academy of St. Petersburg,” M. O. 
von Grimm, describes a curious instance of Parthenogenesis in a 
species of the dipterous genus Chironomus. Like the well-known 
case of Miastor, discovered by Prof. Wagner, this is an example 
of reproduction by an insect in one of its preparatory, and there- 
fore sexless stages, called Poedogenesis, by Von Baer. The forma- 
tion of the egg-like reproductive bodies commences in the larve ; 
but the eggs are not extruded until the insect has passed into the 
pupa state. It appears that in the spring the larvee, produced in 
the ordinary way from eggs, grow rapidly, and after the third 
change of skin, attain their full size, and show distinct traces of 
the pupa within them. The eggs are produced direct from the 
pupa in this condition. In the autumn the course of development 
during the preparatory changes is precisely the same; the pupa, 
however, changes into the imago, which deposits the eggs, prob- 
ably after copulation, in the ordinary manner. he mode of 
development of the eggs and ovaries, and that of the embryo in 
the egg, are described by the author at considerable length, and 
illustrated by good figures. The eggs are developed in the same 
way, both in the spring and in the autumn, although in the one 
case they will be deposited by the pupa, and in the other by the 
imago; and as they present no difference in their structure, the 
