ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
181 
pigmented and tlie fluid emitted subsequently is entirely colourless. 
Pieris brassicse lias a white, and Vanessa urticse an intensely red pigment. 
As the blue and violet of Butterflies are colours produced by interference, 
there is nothing astonishing in the fact that these colours are not seen 
in the urine. The colour of insects about to leave the chrysalis stage 
is not the same in all ; it is most often yellow of varying degrees of 
intensity ; in many species of Bonibyx it is pale, but of a deep hue in 
Vanessa. The blood of Deilephila euphorbia is coloured an intense olive- 
green, and that of Cossus ligniperda is pale yellow. 
Life-history of Emenadia.* * * § — M. A. Chobaut has been able to follow 
the life-history of j Emenadia flabeVata. The eggs are laid in the soil in 
mid- July, and are hatched during the first days of August, when the 
nest of the solitary wasp Odynerus is being provisioned. The minute 
larva climbs into such a nest, establishes itself in a cell, and becomes 
eventually an internal parasite in the young wasp. Not till the be- 
ginning of June in the following year does it appear again on the 
surface as an external parasite. It soon makes an end of its victim, 
pupates in mid-June, and is ready to pair early in July. The primary 
larva, which seeks actively for a host, has legs, antennae, and cuirass- 
like armature. The second form of larva, which possesses and devours 
its host, has no legs, nor antennae, nor protective plates. The species of 
Emenadia are parasitic on solitary wasps (Odynerus, Eumenes, &c.) much 
in the same way as Bhipiphorus paradoxus is on certain social wasps 
(Vespa germanica and V. vulgaris). In their larval dimorphism and 
temporary or persistent endoparasitism, the Rhipiphoridae connect the 
vesicant beetles with the Strepsiptera or Stylopidse. 
Function of the Antennae in Myrmedonia.j — Herr E. Wasmann has 
experimented with various species of Myrmedonia, small beetles which 
insinuate themselves as unwelcome guests of the ant Lasius fuliginosus. 
The latter, though soft-skinned and slow, and thus liable to be preyed 
upon by the beetles, who eat both adults and brood, hunts the robbers 
with persistence. Wasmann’s experiments lead him to believe that the 
antennas of Myrmedonia are not so important in seeking for food as in 
detecting hostilely excited ants. The detection of food at a distance is 
probably in greater part at least due to the palps, but these are too 
small to extirpate for crucial experiment. Those without feelers have a 
better appetite, probably because they are no longer troubled by appre- 
hensions of approaching ants. 
The Spermatozoa of Coleoptera.f — Hr. E. Ballowitz continues his 
study of the minute structure of spermatozoa. In previous papers, some 
of which have been recorded in this Journal, he has shown that the con- 
tractile part of the spermatozoa of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, 
and fishes, and notably the so-called “ undulatory-membrane ” or fringe 
accompanying the axial filament of the tail — consists of or contains very 
fine fibrils to which the contractility is probably due. Prof. Y. Graber § 
* Comptes Rendus, cxii. (1891) pp. 350-3. 
f Biol. Centralbl., xi. (1891) pp. 23-6. 
j Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Zool., 1. (1890) pp. 317-407 (4 pis.). 
§ Biol. Centralbl., x. (1891) pp. 721-31. 
