ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
29 
spun round a stout twig. They vary in size from 3-8 inches in dia- 
meter at the broad end. Upon examination, if freshly constructed, they 
will be found full of very hairy caterpillars, mixed up v/ith their castings 
and moulted skins. These curious structures are woven round twigs by 
the larvae of several different species of moths belonging to the genus 
Teara. They are constructed for shelter during the day, and are not 
used for pupating purposes. Hiding in them during the day, the cater- 
pillars issue forth at dusk, feeding all night, and return to cover at day- 
break. When moving about they travel in procession. 
The author gives a description of T. contraria. The larvse of this 
species live in communities of one hundred or more. About fifty speci- 
mens were collected and placed in a glass jar in the museum, where they 
remained huddled together in a mass, unless disturbed, when they would 
all set off in a procession round the walls of their prison. In about a 
fortnight they began to burrow into the loose sand at the bottom of the 
jar, constructing soft felted cocoons out of the hairs upon their bodies. 
Metamorphoses of Beetles.* — M. le Capitaine Xambeu describes, in 
a fifth memoir on the subject, the metamorphoses in numerous families 
of beetles. His twofold object is to aid towards securer classification, 
and to work out for economic reasons the exact life-history of practically 
important forms. 
Brain of the Bee.f — Dr. F. C. Kenyon has made a study of the 
brain of the common bee. A thousand or more brains were put into 
requisition. It appears to be evident that, though there are more diffi- 
culties in the way of obtaining good results than with Vertebrates, patient 
application of the bichromate of silver method will throw as much light 
upon the organisation of the hexapod nervous system as it has iq)on 
that of the higher animals. The minute structure of the so-called 
mushroom bodies has been brought to light, and it is now almost clear 
to demonstration that the function of these peculiar bodies is that of 
enabling the insect to intelligently adapt itself to its surroundings. 
The cups of these bodies are connected with two pairs of tracts of fibres 
from the optic lobes, with three from the antennary lobes, and with one 
from the ventral nervous system. The roots are very probably con- 
nected with the inner terminals of motor, or possibly of other efferent 
fibres, but the exact course of the connection and the number of cellular 
elements composing it remains to be demonstrated. The central body 
is plainly shown to be connected with the fibrillar arch and with the 
fibrillar mass in front and with that below it. Motor cells have been 
found in a ventral position in the ventro-cerebron, which does not accord 
with the distinction, based upon physiological experiments, of a dorsal 
motor and a ventral sensorial area for each ganglion of the ventral cord. 
The author reconciles the discrepancy by pointing out that it is the 
fibrillar connections that are destroyed, in the lesions produced dorsally, 
and the association cells and fibres and the terminals of sensory fibres 
in ventral lesions. 
Wasps. { — We would recommend all who are interested in these in- 
sects to read the short paper by Mr. Jas. Campbell, which breathes 
* Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon, xli. (1894!) pp. 107-56 ; xlii. (1895) pp. 53-100. 
f Journ. Comp. Neurol., vi. (1896) pp. 133-210 (9 pis.). 
t Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, iv. (1890) pp. 265-7. 
