1 882.] Entomology. 63 



stated that oviposition had not been observed. He has studied it 

 carefully the past summer, and finds that, as the structure of the 

 ovipositor would indicate, the female stations herself lengthwise 

 with the axis of the stem, usually head upward, and literally saws 

 through the epidermis with an up and down motion, just such as 

 a carpenter would make in endeavoring to work the tip of an ordi- 

 nary hand saw into the trunk of a tree. She never has anything to 

 do with the stigma of the flower, as Pronuba does, and the im- 

 portant and interesting fact is recorded that the eggs of Prodoxus 

 are all inserted while the stem is soft and before the flowers begin 

 to open, i. c, before Pronuba usually appears. As soon as the 

 flowers begin to open (in Yucca filamentosa, the species upon 

 which the observations were made) the stem has become too hard 

 to permit the female to do her work, and the species has, for the 

 most part, disappeared, only a few belated individuals being sub- 

 sequently found, and these, so far as could be observed, perishing 

 without issue. In experiments made to test the matter, it was 

 found that where a female succeeded in inserting the ovipositor 

 into a stem that had become hard, she perished in the effort to 

 disengage herself, and remained firmly attached to the stem. 



Clover Insects.— We have received an interesting brochure on 

 the insects of the clover plant by Mr. Lintner, the State Ento- 

 mologist of New York. After an introduction showing by quo- 

 tations from Mr. George Geddes, the importance of the clover 

 crop, especially to the people of New York State, he makes mani- 

 fest the large increase of insect depredators on the plant. He then 

 remarks upon the fact that no notice of clover insects appears in 

 the reports of Dr. Fitch, his predecessor; which fact indicates the 

 scarcity or the unimportance of the insects affecting the crop in 

 Fitch's time. He next quotes from Kaltenbach's Pflanzenfeinde 

 a list of sixty-six species affecting clover in Europe, and by 

 way of comparison gives a list of our own species which includes 

 thirty-three Lepidoptera, three Coleoptera, three Diptera,five Or- 

 thoptera and two Homoptera, and concludes with a detailed 

 account of Hylast, < trifolii, C <<:■/ mvi.i lariiniiuiiolti, C trifolii and 

 Osanis trifolii. 



It may be safely assumed that the number of species in this 

 country affecting the plant, though not perhaps injuriously, will 

 be at least doubled by future observation, and in Coleoptera we 

 feel confident that it will be quintupled. 



Horn's Classification of the Carabid,e.— A great deal of 

 the classificatory work done by entomologists is based upon the 

 study of isolated groups or of more or less restricted local faunas. 

 Useful as such work may be. vet the complex relationships of forms; 

 tne true value of characters used for separating genera and 

 Higher groups ; the coordination or subordination of characters, 

 and other important classificatory questions, can be fully recog- 



