324 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
ous glands ; (7) tliere is direct communication between the testes and the 
unpaired sexual canal, which enlarges into a seminal vesicle ; (8) the 
sexual canals form curved tubes and resemble the segmental organs of 
Aunelids ; (9) reproduction is pseudopaedogenetic. After discussing 
the views of various systematists the author concludes that the Strepsi- 
ptera form a group which probably arose from the ancestors common to 
all the w'inged Insects; they represent an independent branch, which 
has deviated considerably from the other orders; the group was pro- 
bably formed later than the Orthoptera, Pseudoneuroptera, or Neuroptera. 
Coccus cacti.* — Dr. Paul Meyer has made some welcome observa- 
tions on living cochineal insects He gives a preliminary quotation from 
Taschenberg (in Brehm’s c Thierleben ’), which shows the need for some 
accurate observation. According to Blanchard, entomologists are in 
doubt as to whether the female is oviparous or viviparous, the fact 
being that both opinions are in a measure true. The embryos develope 
completely within the mother, but are born within egg-shells, which, as 
well as the first larval skin, they soon leave behind them. 
Apart from the diffuse fatty body and the yolk, no organ has the red 
pigment ; it does not occur in skin, gut, salivary glands, excretory 
tubules, or blood. The carminic acid is a product of the animal’s 
metabolism. The import of the red pigment in the economy of the 
animal remains a riddle. The wax or coccerin secreted by the wax- 
glands, which are especially abundant around the anus, serves to enclose 
the excreta so that the body of the insect is not soiled. The secretion 
passes out in long threads by the “ wax-hairs,” through the membrane , 
which has no visible pores, and in short curved threads by the “ wax- 
pores,” but here also through the membrane . As to the w r ax-cells, they are 
merely larger and longer hypodermis cells, but in them the observer 
could not detect the coccerin. 
It is well known that the males develope within a cocoon, which is 
open posteriorly. This consists of wax threads plus the secretion of 
cement-glands, which are much more abundant on the males than on the 
females. 
In the gut of the female the peculiar invagination of a portion of the 
oesophagus and mid-gut into the rectum, as in several Coccidae, does not 
occur. There is a salivary pump. There are only two Malpighian 
tubules. No hint of a heart or even of a dorsal vessel was seen. 
Systematic Position of Phytophthires.f — Herr J. Krassilstschik 
concludes from his anatomical study of Phylloxera that it is an archaic 
form intermediate between Aphidae and Coccidae. A special family of 
Phylloxeridae (including Phylloxera and Chermes) must be established, 
and regarded as primitive among Phytophthires, and as representing the 
stock from which Aphidae and Coccidae have diverged. 
Gryllidae of Hungary .J — Mr. Gyula Pungur’s monograph aims at 
giving not only a systematic description of the Gryllodea, but also an 
account of their habits, with a special description of the musical pheno- 
* MT. Zool. Stat. Neapel, x. (1892) pp. 505-18 (1 pi.). 
t Zool. Anzeig., xvi. (1893) pp. 69-76, 85-92, 97-102. 
X ‘Hist. Nat. des Gryllides de THongi-ie,’ Budapest, 1891 [received 21/4/93], 
95 pp., 6 pis. 
