ZOOLOGY. 931 
between the habit of Pelopseus and Polistes : : and if Mr. Uhler’s 
observation is a correct one, it is 4 most remarkable entomological 
discovery. 
The Polistes which Mr. Uhler exhibited at Portland is a quite 
common species (or perhaps, more correctly speaking, variety), 
marked in my cabinet P. fuscatus Fabr., and which I know to 
build paper-like nests, according to the habit of the genus. In 
winter collecting I constantly meet with it and other species hiber- 
nating in old hollow logs and stumps, and I cannot help thinking 
that Mr. ‘Bryan, finding it in the same log with his mud cells, 
- jumped to the conclusion that it was the architect of those cells; 
and that its yellow marked body and legs prevented his distin- 
guishing it from Pelopeus lunatus which he afterwards observed 
building mud cells. At all events, I hope Mr. Uhler will tell us 
whether or not he himself observed any of the habits described, 
and will give us that confirmation, of so anomalous a fact, which 
will prevent all incredulity about it in the future, and which the 
article in question fails to give. —C. V. Ritey, Dec. 3, 1873. 
Nores ON THE PLANT Licr.—That aphides, in the spring of the 
year, are “ developed into wingless forms from ova which were 
deposited at the close of the preceding autumn, and which have 
remained dormant during the famine winter months, I believe was 
the theory of naturalists till the year 1852. At this time Prof. 
Owen, in his famous Hunterian lecture on the generation of 
insects, claimed the reproduction of winged individuals to be- 
an occasional occurrence, and also the exceptional mode. 
My observations during the past season have been of such a 
character as to indicate that the professor is not wholly correct. 
From the first appearance of plant lice down to within a compar- 
atively recent date, numberless winged individuals of Aphis rose, 
: mali, etc., have been noticed, associated with clusters of the apte- 
rous ka but more usually single or in pairs, upon their favorite 
. 
_ Plants, at such distances from well-established colonies as to give ` 
warrant to. the belief that wings were solely acquired for the 
_ purpose of diffusing the species. 
In some carefully conducted experiments which T have made, 
_ Some of these winged forms proved quite as prolific as the wing- 
less ; while others, apparently of the same age, manifested indica- 
tions of sterility, from which latter fact it seems just to conclude 
that these were sterile females. 
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