1881. | | Zovlogy. 737 
water specimens. While it might not be considered remarkable 
that a few of these animals should be found in pools of rain- 
water, Iam puzzled to understand how they came here in such 
immense numbers, unless we suppose that they were distributed 
through the whole body of rain that fell, and were afterwards 
concentrated by the draining away of the surplus water. There 
. Were not less than five hundred in the sample of water sent me, 
of which about one-third were alive when received, after having 
been tightly corked for several days.—F. E. L. Beal. 
_ Mosset anp Insect CurmBers.—In Psyche, Vol, 111, No. 80, just 
issued, Victor Tousey Chambers states an interesting fact regard- 
ing the minute larva of the Tineid, Aspidisca saliciella Cham. He 
Says the method by which it climbs a tree or weed, “is one of the 
most surprising in the insect world.’ The larva is footless, nor 
does it gain a foothold by the exudation of any glutinous, or 
other secretion; yet encumbered by its case, it climbs trees, 
fences, &c, “The larve travel solely by their silk. Successive 
taps are given with the end of the spinneret to the surface on 
which the larva lies, thus a minute byssus is formed, to which 
the spinneret adheres, the body is then contracted, so that 
the under surface of the case is attached. The head and seg- 
ments are again extended, and another byssus is made, and the 
body contracting, the case is again brought up and attached. _ Its 
attachment is only by a few silken threads, each of which is less 
than 0.0002™" in diameter, and the fresh silk readily stretches or 
breaks. This is the sole mode of progress of the Jarva.” 
I have thought it would add to the interest of the above, to 
ask the reader to compare it with our account of the mode of 
Perpendicular climbing as practiced by the biack mussel, Mytilus 
edulis, in AMERICAN NATURALIST, Vol. Iv, 1871, p. 331. AS there 
described, the climbing of this mollusk is almost identical with 
that of the larval Tineids described by Chambers. The opera- 
tions of the mussel being on a larger scale were easily observed, 
hence each step in the process is given. The figure of the mus- 
sel, is, by an unfortunate misunderstanding of the printer, placed 
wrong. The umbo, or pointed end of the shell, should be down, 
and the nib, or open end, should be up. Then against the three 
Sets of byssus let the imagination put the perpendicular side of a 
rock, and we have the animal in climbing position. My object in 
hot drawing the rock was simply to save expense in engraving.— 
Samuel Lockwood, Freehold, N. ¥., May, 1881. 
VOL. XV.—No. Ix, 51 
jal 
