1878. | Zoology. 627 
ociety, April 4th, a paper was read by M. C. Cooke, on a 
aes of fungi, from Texas, collected by Mr. Ravenel some 
years ago; the series was small. Grevillea for June contains 
Ravenel’s American Fungi, including, the species issued in the first 
and second centuries of Ravenel’s “ American Fungi,” with other 
distribution. Two elaborate monographs on the vine disease; one, 
published in Italy, by Pirotta, and the other in Austria, by Baron 
Thalmen, are noticed critically. A valuable article on the salmon 
disease, due to Saprolegnia ferax, which is common on the gold- 
fish, in aquaria, by W. G. Smith, is reprinted from the Gardener’s 
i The last (20th) volume of Memoirs of the Société 
National des Sciences Naturelles de Cherbourg, only lately re- 
ceived, contains a life of the eminent botanist, Thuret, by Dr. E. 
Bornet, with researches on the development of buds in the 
Equisetaceze or horse-tails, by E. de Janczewski, while the same 
author contributes notes on the development of the cystocarpe in 
the Floridez, a contribution to the study of the mode of fecunda- 
tion of the alge. An essay of one hundred pages, on the indus- 
trial plants of Oceania, by Mr. H. Jouan. possesses a good deal of 
practical interest. 
ZOOLOGY.? 
NOTES on A New JERSEY CARPENTER-BEE.—A species of car- 
penter-bee (Xylocopa virginica) is very abundant in southern New 
ersey, gnawing its tunnels most often in rails or fences, but 
frequently in parts of houses, so that it sometimes becomes a 
nuisance. As many as fifteen holes I once counted in a single 
rail, but these were the accumulation of years. The main part of 
the tunnel runs lengthwise with the grain. There are usually two, 
but sometimes three, branch tunnels, having a common. opening. 
have often wondered how the insect, when fully developed, 
escapes from the nest in which it has’ undergone its transforma- 
tions. Since the egg first laid is in the bottom cell, if the insect 
from this egg develops soonest it would have to gnaw its way 
out through the wood (as Reaumur states is the case with the 
*rench species X. violacea), or, scramble through the tunnel to 
the opening, to the dismay perhaps of the other bees. On 
examining a nest in Tae 1877, containing five bees, fully 
formed, I found that the bee nearest the o pening was o 
darkest color—there being a regular gradation in color from this 
bee to the lightest colored one at the termination of the tunnel. 
I also noticed that the bees were in a similar. position, bacl 
upwards and head toward the opening, and, although the partitions 
were destroyed, the raspings composing them lying on the lower 
side of the horizontal tunnel, the bees did not appear to have 
`- moved out of their original cell limits. : 
iThe oe of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. ELLiorr 
Cougs, U 
VOL. X1I.—NO, IX. 3 
