NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. soe 
H F THE CARPENTER Bers. — I send specimens in alcohol of 
the pupa of Xylocopa virginica, the Carpenter Bee, with the pupæ of 
Anthrax sinuosa. The latter fly I take to be a parasite of the Car- 
penter Bee. I found them occupying alternate cells or divisions in 
the mines of the Xylocopa. Ceratina dupla, a little green bee, allied 
to pe Carpenter ag is now (May 18) busily boring and laying its 
in almost every variety of pithy stems, such as the Elder and Sy- 
Neate aM AMES ANGUS, West Farms, N. Y. 
SITES OF THE HUMBLE BEE.—I have lately obtained four 
; specimens of a hoik Helia inocu from a Bombus nest kept since 
. last fall in a flower-pot, covered with a glass. — 1b. 
f PER E ERS 
GEOLOGY. 
ON THE ABSENCE OF THE NORTHERN DRIFT FORMATION FROM THE 
WESTERN COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, AND FROM THE INTERIOR OF 
THE CONTINENT. — Prof. manya made some remarks on the absence 
of the Northern Drift formation from the western coast of North 
America, and from the interior of the continent, throughout the region 
ae to the south-west of the Missouri River. - 
The term “Northern Drift” is understood to include the masses of 
unstratified detrital materials and boulders which have been transpo 
ed and distributed by some general cause, independent on a great de- 
gree of the present conformation of the surface and of. the direction 
ense masse 
The ‘cee of the Geological Survey of California have de- 
monstrated, however, that there is no true Northern Drift within the 
limits of this State. Our detrital ere at which often form deposits 
si Sreat extent and thickness, are invariably found to have been 
il 
of extensive glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, there is no rea- 
: sonto, suppose that this ice was, to any extent, an effective agent inthe 
Ea n of the superficial detritus now resting on the flanks of 
the mountains. Th The glaciers were confined to the most elevated por- 
