1885.] Zoölogy. 309 
faces, and concludes that the fluid by which flies adhere to smooth 
surfaces is not sticky, that they need no adhesive secretion and 
that if the fluid were pure water or olive oil it would act the same 
and that the fly’s power of walking on a smooth surface is due 
simply to capillary attraction. A firm adhesion of the hairs to 
smooth surfaces, which Hepworth in 1854, and Dahl and Simmer- 
macher consider as necessary, he finds not to exist A memoir 
of great value on the anatomy of a Myriopod (Lithobius forfi- 
catus), with four colored plates and wood-cuts, but unfortunately 
wholly in Russian, was published in 1880, by N. Sograff in the 
Moscow Transactions. In the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Ento- 
mological Society, Nov., 1884, Mr. G. Gabe claims that Riyssa 
lunator is not a true ichneumon, but a true wood-feeder. The 
breeding habits are described, and the mode of oviposition. Dur- 
ing the process the long ovipositor is bent, passed between 
the posterior legs, the abdomen is elevated almost to a right angle 
with the thorax, and the ovipositor, guided by the anterior tarsi is 
forced with a ramming motion into the wood to the depth of from 
two orthree inches. He has watched many females ovipositing 
and has cut off the ovipositor when ready to be withdrawn, and in 
no instance has he found a larva of any kind anywhere near the 
point reached by the borer, and where the egg was deposited. 
Messrs. Hulst and Weeks stated that they had reached the same 
conclusion from independent observation. During the past 
winter Prof. Packard has given a series of talks or lectures to the 
Providence Entomological Society on the structure and habits of 
insects, in order to aid those members whose time does not per- 
mit them to obtain a general knowledge of the subject. The 
veteran French Coleopterist, Auguste Chevrolat, died Dec. 16th, 
in his 86th year. 
ZOOLOGY. 
FUNCTION OF CHLOROPHYLL IN ANIMALS.—L. von Graff, dissat- 
of H. viridis in eight different vessels ; four of them, A, B, E and 
from an aquarium. In E—G the water was filtered. In A, C, E 
and G the water was changed daily, in the others it was never 
changed at all. The first Hydra to die was one in glass G, on 
the thirty-first day of exposure in which the filtered water was 
changed daily, and the light shut off. The glass A did not lose 
a specimen till the 109th day of observation, when one died. In 
C in which the aquarium water was changed daily, and light shut 
off, the three specimens died on the 105th, 106th and 1rooth 
days; B, in which the water was not changed, and which was ex- 
