598 General Notes. [] u b T , 



impaling insects and other small animals upon thorns and sharp 

 twigs. The worms are useless as further food, and certainly can- 

 not be used as nidi for the eggs of the destroyer. — L. 0. Howard. 

 Habits of Coscinoptera dominicana. — Large numbers of the 

 larvae and pupae of this case bearing beetle were recently found 

 by Professor F. H. King, at River Falls, Wis., in a large ant hill. 

 In our account of the earlier stages of this beetle (6th Mo. Ent. 

 Report, pp. 127-130), the larvae, which we succeeded in feeding 

 with old dry leaves, etc., were raised from the egg and their natu- 

 ral habitat remained, therefore, unknown. We have no doubt 

 from Professor King's experience that it is an inquiline in ants' 

 nests, especially as other species of this group, e.g., the European 

 Clythra quadrisi^nata, are known to have this habit. No North 

 American species of the Clythra -roan his heretofore been known 

 to live among ants, though we lately received numerous cases of 

 a Clythrid larva, found in ants' nests in Arizona, by Mr. H. K. 

 Morrison, indicating, by their peculiar form and sculpture, a 

 species (or perhaps genus) allied to Cosc'urft v? dominu via 

 whose larva presumably feeds upon the vegetable debris in the 

 ant hill. What benefit the ant derives from its presence it is dif- 

 ficult to perceive.— C. V. Riley. 



Bot-Fly Maggots in a Turtle's Neck.— The Museum of 



Brown University has received specimens of a bot-fly maggot, of 



which eight or ten were taken, according to Professor J. W. P. 



Jenks, from under the skin of the hack of the neck, close to the 



shell of the box turtle ( Cistudo cat* 



Vr— ' Una). The turtle was collected at Mid- 



, , : dleboro, Mass. Fig. I represents the 



I w larva magnified three limes, seen from 



: , beneath, a the anterior part of the body 



; ' seen from above, and b the spiracles (sp) 

 : at the end of the body. , „ 



\ It appears to be a genuine botfly, but 

 1 quite unlike any genus figured by Brauer 

 / in his work on'the CEstridae. . 



xfc^ ' A T The body-is long and slender, cylindri- 

 cal, tapering so that each end is much alike. The segments are 



fined to the p. i 1 .1 half «- two-thirds of the 



body is slenderer and the spines much smaller than in Gastrofiv 



lus equi.—A. S. Packard, Jr. 



Sun-spots and Insect Life.— Mr. A. II. Swinton, in a com- 

 munication to Nature (April, 1882, p. 584), gives a condenseu 

 table intended to show the relation existing between sun "^P 

 cycles and the appearance of insects. A number of Lepidopte 

 that are rare in Great Britain, and at the same time so conspic" 

 ous as to not easily be overlooked, are selected for this purpo • 



Tin' 



