596 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
lar interest attached to the forms in question, e.g. Chorcetypus, Frianthus,. 
Frucius , Masiacides, Gomphomastax, not only because of the quaint 
colours, bizarre forms, and imperfectly understood adaptations, but also 
because the members of the tribe are relatively rare. 
“Corselet” of Ant.* * * § — M. Charles Janet describes the minute struc- 
ture of the “ corselet ” of a queen Myrmica rubra, and discusses the 
movements of the tegumentary skeleton of the mesothorax during flight,, 
and the nine pairs of muscles by which these movements are produced. 
He promises to give, in a further note, the results of his observation of 
the phenomena of histolysis which the vibratory muscles undergo when 
they have become useless through the falling-off of the wings. At the 
end of the season and in early winter the products of this histolysis 
furnish part of the aliment necessary to the formation of the eggs from 
which the first workers of the colony are developed. 
Tegumentary Glandular System of Myrmica rubra. | — In continu- 
ation of his work on ants, bees, and wasps, M. Charles Janet publishes 
notes on the tegumentary glandular system of Myrmica rubra, and on 
the sting and the mechanism by which the poison-gland is closed in the 
same species. He defines as tegumentary all such glands as are formed 
directly from the tegument and open at its surface, thus excluding the 
glands connected with the alimentary canal. The cells of all the 
integumentary glands are large. They have a large nucleus, a clear 
vacuole, and a fine chitinous excretory canal prolonged to the exterior, 
and similar to the intracellular canals which have been studied by 
other investigators in some species of Formica and in the Coleoptera. 
M. Janet names and figures eight pairs of tegumentary glands in M. rubra,. 
describing the structure and probable function of each pair. In another 
“ Note” he gives a full account of the minute structure of the sting, and 
of the poison-gland and its closing-apparatus. 
/3. Myriopoda. 
Branchial Respiration in Diplopoda.J — M. Causard observed in 
Brachydesmus superus Latzel and Polydesmus gallicus Latzel, submerged 
in water, the evagination of a transparent rectal pouch, which showed fine 
tracheae and blood-currents. He interprets this as a mode of branchial 
respiration. In lulus the evagination of a rectal pouch was also ob- 
served. According to the observer, the facts suggest the probability 
that the Myriopods had an aquatic origin, and that the Diplopoda are 
more primitive than the Chilopoda. 
Palaearctic Myriopoda.§ — Dr. Carl Graf Attems publishes an im- 
p< rtant systematic paper on this subject, which includes descriptions- 
of several new species and notes on anatomy. He also discusses the 
morphology of the anal legs and maxillipedes of the Chilopoda, and 
concludes that in the Scolopendridae the anal legs have neither coxa nor 
trochanter, while in the Geophilidae the coxa is usually absent. 
* Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 1898, pp. 393-450 (1 pi. and 25 figs.), 
t ‘Etudes sur les Fourmis, les Guepes et les Abeilles,’ Carre' and Naud, Paris,. 
1898, Note 17, 30 pp. and 9 figs. ; Note 18, 25 pp. and 3 pis. 
+ Comptes Eendus, cxxix. (1899) pp. 237-9. 
§ Zool. Jahrb. (Abt. Syst.), sii. (1899) pp. 286-336 (3 pis.). 
