126 General Notes. [ February, 
to be discovered. It should be said that the subject is one pre- 
senting great difficulties, as formerly stated by Burnett. The 
spermatic particles of the perch and smelt, are apti eTa SA mi- 
nute, about tybvy inch in diameter, and in t we have thus far 
found it impossible to detect the “tails” se a ys inch objective. 
have been informed by John Sears, of Danvers, Mass., that 
he found young eels, somewhat less than an inch in length, with 
the yolk-sac still attached, at the mouth of a shallow brook run- | 
ning into salt water at Danvers. This was during the month of 
March; the season was earlier than usual, the ice having broken 
up in February. This would indicate that the parent eel must 
have spawned in December. As Mr. Sears is an observing field 
naturalist, and has noticed the breeding habits of other fish, we 
suppose him to be correct in the identification of the young eel. 
We would inquire whether any one else has ever observed eels 
so young and small as these, and with the yolk-sac still attached. 
Mr. Sears informs us, that at Danvers the trout begins to spawn 
in January, beginning then to make the shallow holes in gravelly 
places. He has noticed perch spawning in midwinter, in ponds 
in shallow water, their movements being observed through the 
ice; at this time the fins become red on the edges. On the other 
hand, the bream spawns in spring and summer. The horned 
pout, he says, breeds in holes in the gravel in midsummer.—A. 
S. Packard, Fr. 
A Cark Ineasiring Ant.—The empty dwellings of many ani- 
mals furnish suitable abodes for others. The abandoned shell 
and wasps as a fitting place in which to ‘build their cells; two 4 
species have been found in New England to choose the concave A 
vault of the oak-apple for the same purpose. a 
I can now record two instances in which galls have been chosen 
by an ant, Stexamma gallarum n. sp., as the home of the colony. 
The first colony observed was in a gall of Gelechia galle-solidaginis 
Riley, upon a dead but unbroken stalk of golden-rod. From _ 
pupz found in this gall on the 31st of May, and placed in a vial . 
under the care of a few workers, there matured three females, one _ : 
upon each of the following days: June 20th and 23d, and July a 
ay The second colony was found while upon an excursion with _ | 
. Mitsikuri, ot the 22d of May, 1878, in a fallen gall of 
Ces spongifica O.S. It was more populous than the other | 
colony, and re the central cell, as well as the space between _ 
the kernel and the shell of the gall. Except the queen, who was 
without wings, the — consisted of workers and oes 
only.!+— W. H. Patton 
1 Stenamma gallarum n. sp. j 
Femaie.—Yellowish; head scutellum and petiole above, and incisures of thorax 
darker; ae) and spot at insertion of wings, black; the segments of the abdomen 
_ with dark-brown home: the border on the first segment broad. Length, 3mm. _ 
ee specimens become darker colored, TE pinned Ọ present the following 
