1879. | Zoology. 45 
ing observations upon the habits of Amphioxus. Amphioxus has 
been found upon the coast of North Carolina, and last winter one 
of the assistants of the Smithsonion Institution discovered it in the 
Bermudas; until this summer these were the only instances of 
its occurrence upon this side of the Atlantic 
“ Another important form of life which was carefully studied, 
is Lingula, one of the Brachiopods, a group which has been of 
great importance during past geological periods, but has now 
almost entirely disappeared. Lzngula itself has persisted un- 
changed from the time of formation of the oldest fossiliferous 
rocks, and is one of the first living things of which we have any 
knowledge. As Lingula has not before been found under cir- 
cumstances which admitted of careful study, almost nothing was 
known of its development, but I was able to trace its life-history 
this summer from a very early stage up to the adult form, and to 
show that, old as it is, each individual, from the time of the 
lower Silurian up to the present time, has transmitted to its 
children a developmental record which proves that Lingula itself 
.is the descendant of a much older form.” 
SINGULAR Hasit oF A MeLorp BEETLE.—I have noticed for the 
past two seasons a singular habit of one of the Meloid beetles, 
Tricrania stansburi, which, so far as I am aware, seems some- 
what at variance with the known habits of this family. Previous 
to the spring of 1877 this beetle was very rarely taken, and is 
yet, I believe, not common in collections. In April of that year 
a few were caught on the Kansas plains, slowly flying over the 
uplands on warm sunny days. In the latter part of the month, 
however, a number of specimens were observed in the bottom of | 
a wagon bed that had been used to collect buffalo bones for the 
market; upon further investigation large quantities were 
obtained from the decaying buffalo and antelope bones on the 
high prairies. They chose only the cancellous tissue of the limb 
bones, or more especially the ethomidal and sphenoidal regions of 
the skull in weathered skeletons. None were ever taken after the ` 
latter part of May. In early May of the present year several 
were taken from a decayed railroad tie in the vicinity of Como, 
Wyoming ; one.female having apparently just deposited a mass- 
of eggs in a warm fissure. : 
The large number upon the plains, both of species and indi- 
viduals, in this genus, eaether with Meloe, Nomaspis, Macrobasis, 
Epicauta, Pyrota, Zonitis, Ne mognatha and Gnathium, and the par- 
asitism of several of these, as shown by Prof. Riley, upon the 
locusts, will render a further elucidation of the habits of Zricrania 
an interesting one.—S. W. Williston. 
New CARCINOLOGICAL Papers.—Mr. E. J. Miers, of the British 
Museum, publishes a “ Revision of the Hippidea ” in the Journal 
of the Linnzan Society. Vol. xiv, in which he enumerate six _ 
