1020 The American Naturalist. [November, 
pressus and C. rufoglaucus, but chiefly the big soldiers of compressus. 
There were heads alone, heads with the thorax attached, thorax with- 
out the head, bodies without thorax, with a scattering of legs and 
antennæ, attached and unattached, in every possible form, but I could 
not find any of these portions in the nests. Now the question arises, 
What are these mounds for, and how does Pheidole collect and form 
them? Are they simply carcases stacked, to be cut up at leisure and 
carried into the nest in suitable sizes for future provision, or are these 
bodies arranged as a grim warning to prowling enemies, after the fash- 
ion of skulls set up at the entrance to the villages of some wild and 
primitive tribe? and, then, how does Pheidole collect them? It is 
hardly possible that they are killed and brought in, for Pheidole would 
have to be in overwhelming force to master a single giant-headed 
soldier of compressus. Perhaps they act as undertakers, and collect the 
dead thrown out by Camponotus for some special purpose of their own ; 
and, then, why should this trait break out in Madura, for certainly I 
have not met with it in other parts, although compressus and rhom- 
binoda are practically common everywhere.” 
Mr. Rothney was unsuccessful in getting ants to stridulate while on 
the march. He thinks they do so, however and concludes that “ in lay- 
ing down rules for ant conduct some allowance should always be made 
for the different little traits of character, the whims and fancies, as it 
were, which are to be found not only in a given species but in individ- 
ual ants.” 
Entomological Notes.—Mr. R. I. Pocock figures and describes’ 
an interesting stridulating organ in the male of the spider Cambridgea 
antopodiana (White). He believes it is used as a sexual call, no such 
organ being found in the female. 
Professors J. H. Comstock and V. L. Kellogg have prepared an ex- 
tremely valuable laboratory handbook entitled The Elements of Insect 
Anatomy. It is published by the Comstock Publishing Co., Ithaca, 
N. Y. 
Bulletin 48 of the U. S. National Museum consists of a Revision of 
the Deltoid Moths by Prof. J. B. Smith. There are 126 pages of letter- 
press and fourteen plates of figures, 
“A Preliminary List of the Hemiptera of Colorado” is the title of 
Bulletin 31 of the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station. In it 
Messrs. Gillette and Baker have prepared a faunistic paper of unusual 
value. There are 647 species listed, belonging to 261 genera; five new 
genera and 111 new species are described, 
"Annals & Mag. Nat. Hist., XVI, 230. 
