July 4, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



23 



the myths and folk-lore of the several tribes in their 

 own languages, with interlinear translations. The 

 paper of Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, although it does 

 not in this volume present the original language, is 

 written after the reduction of the original to writing 

 in the course of her linguistic work, after a prolonged 

 residence among the Iroquois tribes, into one of which, 

 the Tuscarora, she was adopted. It is therefore an 

 authoritative rendering of some of the Iroquois myths, 

 some of which have appeared in other forms, and 

 others of which have been for the first time collected 

 by herself. Mr. Henshaw, in forty-four pages, dis- 

 cusses the animal carvings from the mounds of the 

 Mississippi valley, and reaches the following general 

 conclusions : — 



1°. That, of the carvings from the mounds which 

 can be identified, there are no representations of birds 

 or animals not indigenous to the Mississippi valley, 

 and consequently that the theories of origin for the 

 mound-builders suggested by the presence in the 

 mounds of carvings of supposed foreign animals are 

 without basis ; 



2°. That a large majority of the carvings, instead of 

 being, as assumed, exact likenesses from nature, pos- 

 sess in reality only the most general resemblance to 

 the birds and animals of the region which they were 

 doubtless intended to represent; 



3°. That there is no reason for believing that the 

 masks and sculptures of human faces are more cor- 

 rect likenesses than are the animal carvings; 



4°. That the state of art-culture reached by the 

 mound-builders, as illustrated by their carvings, has 

 been greatly overestimated. 



Dr. Matthews' paper is of eight pages, and is illus- 

 trated with five plates. Mr. Holmes's paper, one of 

 the most important in the volume, is noticed on 

 another page. Mr. Stevenson's papers are also fully 

 illustrated, a number of the plates being colored; 

 and his catalogues are not merely enumerations, but 

 are accompanied by a judicious amount of discussion 

 and comparison, which render them of substantial 

 value. The volume has not only a complete table of 

 contents and a full index, but each paper has a sepa- 

 rate table of contents, and list of illustrations. 



RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. 



June 10. — The Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook stated that 

 in November, 1883, he received from Mr. Webster of 

 Illinois two globular nodules of earth, each about 

 the size of a grape, which were thought to be the 

 cocoons of a spider. Similar balls had often been 

 found attached by a slender thread or cord of silk to 

 the under side of fallen boards. Dr. McCook was 

 much puzzled to decide upon the nature of these 

 objects, but, on the whole, believed them to be the 

 work of some hymenopterous insect, and not of 

 a spider. Two ichneumons which emerged from 

 similar cells were determined by Mr. E. T. Cresson 

 to be Pezomachus meabilis Cress. Subsequently Mr. 

 Webster sent other specimens, some of which were 

 opened. They contained silken sacs embedded in 

 the centre of the mud-ball, apparently of spider spin- 

 ning-work; and within these were fifteen or twenty 

 yellowish eggs, evidently those of a spider. The 

 disjecta membra of two adult spiders taken, near the 

 balls, although much broken, enabled him to deter- 

 mine them as drassids (a family of the tube-weavers), 

 and probably of the genus Micaria. These had been 

 found simply near the mud-balls, but the connection 

 between them had not been established. Dr. McCook 

 moistened the cocoons in order to give a natural con- 

 dition more favorable for the escape of the spider- 

 lings, should they hatch ; and on May 30, on opening 

 the box, he found about thirty lively young spiders 

 therein. On the bottom of the box was a dead 

 ichneumon, which had cut its way out of the side of 

 one of the balls by a round hole. The spiderlings 

 seemed to have escaped from their ball along the slight 

 duct left at the point where the bit of silken cord was 



embedded in hard earth, and thence protruded, form- 

 ing the cocoon-stalk by which the ball was attached to 

 an under surface. The appearance of the spiderlings 

 indicated that they had been hatched two or three 

 days when first seen. They were evidently drassids 

 of the same species as the broken specimens above 

 alluded to. Thus the interesting habit of concealing 

 her future progeny within a globular cradle of mud 

 was demonstrated to belong to a spider as well as to 

 a wasp. That this particular species is much subject 

 to the attacks of hymenopterous parasites is already 

 proved; but that it is more exposed than many other 

 species which spin silken cocoons, otherwise unpro- 

 tected in very many localities, does not appear. 

 There is no evidence that so strange a habit has devel- 

 oped from necessity, and none that it proves more 

 protective than the ordinary araneal cocoonery. Dr. 

 McCook had named the species, provisionally, Mica- 

 ria limnicunae (limnus, mud, and cunae, a cradle), 

 although it is possible that Hentz may have described 

 the species as one of his genus Herpyllus. The only 

 spider-cocoons known to the speaker, at all resem- 

 bling those of M. limnicunae, he had collected at 

 Alexandria Bay, N.Y., on the St. Lawrence River, in 

 1882. They were attached by very close spinning- 

 work to the under side of stones. But the external 

 case, instead of being of mud, was a mass of agglom- 

 erated particles of old wood, bark, leaves, blossoms, 

 the shells and wings of insects, etc. These were held 

 together by delicate and sparsely spun filaments of 

 silk. Two of these chip-balls were opened, and 

 found to contain whitish cocoons similar to those in 

 the mud-balls of M. limnicunae. Another had with- 

 in it the characteristic cell of some hymenopterous 

 parasite containing a dried-up pupa. A very thin 



