NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Mimete Anatocy.— At a recent meeting of the shal of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Prof. Cope described a new 
genus and species of snake, from the Museum of the Smithsonian 
Institution, which was interesting in several respects. It was 
called Nothopsis rugosus, and was said to be in structural charac- 
ters near to the family of Achrochordide, but apparently nearest 
the genus Xenodermus Reinhdt., all which forms are natives of 
the East Indian Archipelago. 
The description indicated how closely this serpent resembled in 
coloration the young examples of Trigonocephalus atrox from the 
same country, and the Trigonocephalus Newidii of Brazil. This is 
so marked as to constitute a case of mimetic analogy. But few 
cases of mimicry of the Crotaline venomous snakes are to be ob- 
served in South America, the imitations being chiefly of the other 
venomous group of Proteroghypha as represented by Elaps. 
In this connection was made a reclamation of the discovery of 
this, perhaps the most extensive example of mimetic analogy known 
in Zoology. Alfred R. Wallace, in his admirable work * Contribu- 
tions to the Theory of Natural Selection,” London, 1870, gives 
Dr. Giinther as his authority for the facts of the case with regard 
to the genera Plicocerus, Oxyrrhopus, Erythrolamphrus, etc., and 
refers to his own previously published account of it in one of the 
British reviews for 1867. Wallace is quoted by Darwin in his 
“Descent of Man,” to the same effect. The first published ac- 
count of the case will be found in the “Proceedings of the Acad. 
Nat. Sci., of Phila.,” 1865, p. 190, in a paper by the author. It 
was ager and extended in “Origin of Genera,” 1868, but had 
been already pointed out in conversation with Dr. Wallace and 
probably Dr. Giinther also, when in London in 1863, a fact which | 
had probably escaped his memory. 
ENTOMOLOGICAL Irems.—The Lachnosterna fusca, the Maybee- 
tle, or Dorbug, has appeared unusually early in Freehold, N. J. 
April 22d, I found numbers of well developed specimens in the 
streets under the maples, which as io had their foliage not over 
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