1884.) Entomology. 293 
top or bottom of the egg, but directed its efforts to the thinner 
sides. It would frequently stop and clean its head with its fore 
legs, and the end of the abdomen with its hind legs, as a fly does. 
—A. S. Packard, jr. 
PAIRED SEXUAL Out ets IN Insects.—J. A. Palmén records in 
the Morphologische Jahrbuch, 1883, the discovery in the May flies 
(Ephemeridz) that the outlets of the sexual glands are paired, 
not only in the larve of all stages, but also in the imagines, and 
in both sexes, as had been earlier stated by Réaumer, Eaton and 
Joly. In the males the vasa deferentia pass through on the ven- 
tral side of the ninth segment two external appendages, both 
reproductive organs, at whose tips or sides the openings are situ- 
ated. In the larvz the female openings are not formed until after 
the last molt. In the females the two oviducts open on the ven- 
tral side of the hind body between the seventh and eighth seg- 
Palmén suggests that the Ephemerids represent, in respect to 
the reproductive system among insects, a very primitive type of 
organization, and he concludes that the inner sexual organs of 
insects are built up of two different morphological elements, #. e., 
(a) internal primitive paired structures (testes with vasa deferentia, 
ovaria with oviducts), and (4) integumental structures, such as the 
ductus ejaculatorius and vagina. 
Tue Larc worm.—For three summers past the existence of 
the larch, hackmatack or tamarack, in the northern portions o 
New England, New York, and portions of New Brunswick and 
nada, has been threatened by a saw-fly larva. This proves to 
be the Nematus erichsonii, as the transformations, habits and 
mago appear to be the same. From Ratzeburg’s description, the 
habits of the American worm are evidently like those of the 
4uropean species, and it is very probable that the insect is com- 
mon to both Europe and Northeastern America. At any rate 
one Species could not have been introduced with European 
larches, since its ravages have been committed in the wilder, less 
uented portions of Maine, New Hampshire and New York, 
as well as on the seaboard in towns long settled. In brief, the 
“its of our species are as follows: The eggs are laid in the ter- 
ae young shoots of the larch from about the middle of June, 
the husetts, to the early part of July in Northern Maine, 
| larvae feeding on the leaves late in June and in July and early 
. - By the last of July to the first week in August, accord- 
P'S to the latitude, the worms are nearly fully grown, while a few 
” rown ones occur on the trees in Maine in the last week of 
Wink and the early days of September. It is very doubtful 
accon ? there are two broods. We will now give a more detailed 
h nt of its habits, from a report on the causes of the destruc- 
report evergreen forests extracted from the forthcoming annual 
: of the Entomologist, Department of Agriculture, 1883. 
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