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young trees in extraordinary numbers. The result is that many trees 
two inches or less in diameter, planted in 1893, are dead this season. 
The strip of affected timber is about one and one-half miles long and 
skirts the bank of the Missouri River. Fortunately many of the speci- 
mens received were pierced with the exit holes of some hymenopterous 
parasite. This adds another to the already large list of insects affect- 
ing young trees on tree claims in the West. 
THE SPIDER WHICH BITES. 
The spider mentioned in the stories told by Dr. E. E. Corson, in his 
lengthy letter published in Insect Life (vol. i, p. 280-2), has never 
been determined. We hazarded the guess that the privy-inhabiting 
species might have belonged to either of the genera Amaurobius or 
Caelotes, or possibly to Tegenaria, Pholcus, or Dictyna. The well-known 
habits of Latrodectus mactans, however, seemed to indicate that it could 
not be the species the bite of which brought about such serious results 
in the cases mentioned by Dr. Corson. We have recently received a 
letter, however, from Mr. Frank M. Jones, of Wilmington, Del., with 
which he transmitted specimens of a spider which he captured in an 
irregularly spun web a few inches below the level of the seat in a privy 
at Milledgeville, Baldwin County, Ga. This insect proved to be Latro- 
dectus mactans, and, in view of this direct evidence, it seems likely that 
in some at least of the cases described by Dr. Corson this species was 
concerned. 
PSEUDOPARASITIC HAIRS OF TACHINIDS. 
M. A. Giard, at a meeting of the Societe Entomologique de France 
of April 25, presented a short communication on the subject above 
mentioned. He said that at the previous meeting he had exhibited a 
Tachina fly {Exorista excavata) which carried certain bizarre append- 
ages, the nature of which was problematical. Later examination, how- 
ever, indicated that they were hairs of a bombycid caterpillar, probably 
of the genus Chelonia. He shows that Girschner had* mistaken similar 
objects for specialized rnacrochetse, while Mik had recognized in another 
case the hairs of Chelonia villica. This reminds us that upon one occa- 
sion we gave a small hymenopterous insect to an artist to figure, and 
when the preliminary sketch was completed we were surprised to find 
two very curious barbed hairs represented as proceeding symmetrically 
from the hind femora. We examined the specimen and found that the 
artist had depicted what was really present, but the peculiar hairs 
were undoubtedly those of a dermestid larva and formed no part of the 
insect itself. 
CICADA CHIMNEYS. 
We had the pleasure in August of listening to a paper read by Dr. 
J. A. Lintner before Section F of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, on the subject of the remarkable structures 
