820 General Notes. [December, 
Gazette, a notice of the occurrence of Orobanche minor in New 
Jersey. Dr. A. P. Garber writes in the October number of South 
Floridan ferns, while Mr. J. G. Lemmon writes in rather a gush- 
ing way of the big trees of California. 
ZOOLOGY. ! 
BREEDING HABits oF Corixa. — In Bulletin No. 1 of the 
Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, I called attention, 
three years ago, in a paper on the Crustacea of Illinois, to a 
breeding habit of Corixa, which seems to have escaped the notice 
of the entomologists ; and as my note has also been generally 
I repeat the observation 
selection, unless I wholly misunderstand the matter. 
In temporary ponds of this region, which fill up every spring 
and dry out in midsummer, Corixa alternata Say, is an abundant 
insect, and Cambarus immunis Hagen, is the commonest craw-fish. 
In seining some of these ponds, three years ago, in June and 
July, I noticed that the backs of many of the crawfishes were 
covered with a moss-like incrustation, which, upon examination 
proved to be the eggs of insects, stuck fast by one end as close 
together as they could be placed. Sometimes only a few would 
be found on a crawfish, and sometimes the upper surface would 
be nearly covered. They were just hatching when first observed, 
and it took but a little time to determine that they were unmis- 
takable Corixas. Careful search of the water weeds and other 
submerged objects failed to discover other eggs, and I was led to 
conclude that the Corixa purposely selected this remarkable 
place for oviposition. Since then I have found these eggs also 
on the shells of pond molluscs, and on the carapace of Cambarus 
acutus Gir., another wide-spread and common crawfish. : 
I can account for so strange a habit only by supposing that it 
is a “provision of nature” to guard against the waste of eggs 
otherwise resulting from the drying up of the ponds. The craw- 
fishes mentioned are distinctively aquatic species, and as one 
„pond dries up they migrate to another, or to a neighboring 
stream, bearing on their hospitable backs, as the shepherd bore 
(Edipus from impending destruction, the hopes of the distressed 
water bugs. this is a fixed habit of a species or variety, an 
not a local accident, it ought to be heard of elsewhere.—S. A. 
Forbes. 
SNAKEs AND Cop VıcTUALs.—Ít is a popular notion that ser- 
pents never eat what has been killed by any agency except their 
own; and, though naturalists know this belief to be false, very 
-few of the one hundred and thirty-two species of North Ameri- 
can serpents have been proved by actual observation to have 
a à eaten any animal which they have not captured alive. 
iThe A ETTET of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. ELLIOTT 
uEs, U.S.A.” ; : : 
