1030 General Notes. 
amonth. May it not, therefore, have been the case that the workers 
to which fell the task of collecting honey brought it in such 
quantities and, so quickly, that all the comb-cells were filled before 
the queen had an opportunity to deposit her eggs? If this were 
the case the swarms necessarily became extinct by the natural 
limitation of the life of individual bees, because of the failure to 
keep up their numbers by breeding. In short is not this a case in 
which the instinctive struggle for existence defeated its object ? 
ave no intention of drawing a parallel between this case of 
disastrous results to bee-life under apparently normal and unusually 
favorable conditions, and a certain phase of human society, but if 
the foregoing suggestions are of little value for want of scientific 
verification they are believed to be deserving of consideration from 
other points of view.—C. A. White. 
THE CALCAREOUS PLATES OF THE Srar-FisH.—Dr. J. W. 
Fewkes (Bulletin Mus. Comp. Zool., XVII., 1888) describes at 
length the development of the calcareous plates in Asterias, and 
compares the results with those furnished by Amphiura. The 
results of the comparison may be tabulated thus :— 
Amphiura. Asterias. 
Basals. Genitals. 
Dorso-central. Dorso-central. 
Dorsals. Dorsals. 
Lat Inter-ambulacrals. 
Terminals. Terminals. 
‘* Spoon-shaped plates.’’ Oral Ambulacrals. 
Orals. First Inter-brachials. 
TEE kki Adam- { No Homologues. 
Ventrals. No wra ee k 
y Dorso-laterals and con- 
No Homologues. l nectors, 
The madreporic opening is placed on two homologically different 
plates in Amphiura and Asterias, 
A New Earraworm.—Under the name Diplocardia commu- 
nis, H. Garman describes (Bulletin Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist.) a 
new earthworm from Champaign, Ill. This new genus belongs 
to the family Acanthodrilide of Claus, but it differs from the other 
members of the family in several important characters. Its nearest 
relation is Acanthodrilus of Africa and the Orient. Among - 
most noticeable features are the absence of a sub-neural vesset, 
the existence of a double dorsal vessel, the two halves being yo 
rated throughout their length, except where they pass through = 
dissipiments between the somites. Although not mentioned by 
Mr. Garman, this character of the central circulatory organ pos- 
