IC14 General Notes. [December, 



fauna of the Mediterranean; there are besides, several ornitholog- 

 ical papers by Oustalet and others. Zeitschrift fur Wissens- 



chaflliche Zoologie, August I, contains an elaborate memoir by H. 

 Ludwig, on the embryology of a star fish, Asteria gibbosa. There 

 is throughout the Echinodermata a mode of development, which 

 must be spoken of as a metamorphosis, all the larvae being 

 ciliated, with a mouth and anus on one side. The processes by 

 which the primary larva is converted into the echinoderm appear 

 to be essentially the same in all cases ; all that happens in a more 

 complicated history, being the fact that in the secondary larvae 

 there is an absorption of those larval parts which had themselves 

 become secondary. The secondary characters are not to be 

 regarded as having anything to do with the future organization of 

 the echinoderm, but as adaptations proper to the larval life, and 

 disappearing at its close. There is no true solid morula in the 

 earliest phases of development, but a blastosphere with a unilami- 

 nate wall; the gastrula is formed by invagination. Especial atten- 

 tion is given to the mode of origin of the hydrocoel, the blood 

 vascular system and stomodaeum, as well as the skeleton. 

 ENTOMOLOGY. 1 



A New Rice Stalk-borer : Genus-grinding. — We quote the 

 following from an article on a new Lepidopterous insect which, 

 in the larva state, bores the stalks of rice. The article occurs in 

 the annual report of the U. S. Entomologist for 1881-2, already 

 printed : 



" We have had some difficulty in deciding as to the true specific 

 determination of this insect, chiefly because of a close general re- 

 semblance which it must possess to other species. Mr. Grote, 

 when we showed him a specimen last autumn in New York, 

 thought it might possibly be his Chilo crambi / : ks, while Profes- 

 sor Fernald determined it, from a specimen which we sent him, as 

 Diphryx prolatella Grote, 2 stating at the time that he might be 

 wrong, but that, having seen Mr. Grote's type, he considered our 

 insect identical with it so far as he could trust his recollection. 

 The specific description of D. prolatella certainly does agree very 

 closely with the species we are considering, which has also the 

 mucronate clypeus of Diphryx, but in order to refer our insect to 

 D. prolatella we must assume that Mr. Grote erected his new 

 genus, Diphryx, on a mutilated specimen which had lost its max- 

 illary and part of its labial palpi, for the genus is founded on 

 short labial papi which hardly exceed the face, and the absence 

 of maxillary palpi — characters decidedly exceptional and remark- 

 able in the family. In order to settle the matter, therefore, we 

 again referred, through Mr. Henry Edwards, a perfect specimen 

 'TIb i department is edited by Professor C. V. Riley, Washington, D. C.,to whom 

 »N. Am. Moths, Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey; vi, No. 2, p. 273. 



