728 The American Naturalist. [August, 
room for them between the heads of their hosts and the glass to which 
they were applied. The ants of this brood had acquired the habit of 
placing themselves, crowded one against the other, in one corner of the 
nest, and there they came with their crops well filled after the meal of 
blue-honey, and there they disgorged before the mouths of their com- 
rades who had none. Now the ant in the act of disgorging opens its 
mandibles wide. The peristaltic movements of the esophagus and the 
movements of the pharynx brought up the globules of honey, the blue 
color of which made them readily visible, and they formed a little drop 
in front of the mouth. While the fasting ant was eating the honey 
thus disgorged, the Antennophorus riding on its head took its share. 
To do this it pushed itself forward and thrust its rostrum into the drop- 
let. Generally, while holding itself in position by means of the two 
hinder pairs of legs, it attached itself by means of the forward pair to 
the head of the disgorging ant. Very often, when the fasting ant had 
ended its meal and was retiring, one would see the Antennophorus try 
to keep its hold on the disgorging ant. The two Lasii generally lend 
themselves to this prolongation of the meal, and if they are slightly 
separated from one another, the Antennophorus stretches itself to its 
full length, and forms, back downwards a sort of bridge between the 
heads of the two ants.—Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 
The Spread of the Asparagus Beetle.—In the recent Year- 
book of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mr. F. H. Chittenden 
describes the distribution of Orioceris asparagi in America. He writes: 
From the scene of its first colonization in Queens County, New York, 
the insect migrated to the other truck-growing portions of Long Island, 
and may now be found at Cutchogue, toward the eastern end of the 
island. It soon reached southern Connecticut, and has now extended 
its range northward through that State and Massachusetts to the State 
line of New Hampshire. Southward, it has traveled through New 
Jersey, where it was first noticed in 1868, eastern Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware and Maryland to southern Virginia. 
Its distribution by natural means has been mainly by the flight of 
the adult beetles. Undoubtedly, also, the beetles have been transpo 
from place to place by water, both up and down stream by rising and 
falling tide, as the fact that it has not until recently deviated far from 
the immediate neighborhood of the sea coast and of large water courses 
near the coast bears abundant testimony. 
Another reason for the present prevalence of this species in these a : 
localities is that asparagus was originally a maritime plant and oe 
