successful agriculture in the more arable portions. Several species seem to be thus troublesome, and until they are better known and the habits of the different species studied, it will be impossible to suggest a rational mode of warfare against them.

LARVE OF COLEOPTERA.-Professor F. G. Schaupp continues, in the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society, his descriptions of larvæ of Coleoptera. In No. 10, Vol. 1, of said Bulletin, he gives a plate with illustrations representing the larvæ of Platynus extensicollis, Chlænius leucoscelis, Pterostichus lucublandus, P. mutus and Staphylinus vulpinus.

COVERING OF EGG-PUNCTURE MISTAKEN FOR DORTHESIA.—In hastily looking over the collection of the late Dr. Fitch recently, we were somewhat amused to recognize the white and ribbed waxy material covering the egg-punctures of Enchophyllum binotatum labeled as Dorthesia viburni and D. celastri. This covering does bear a superficial resemblance to the exudations of Dorthesia, though a glance suffices to show that it has no structure connected with it. We cannot find that any such species of Dorthesia were described by Fitch, though Glover refers to his D. celastri as found on Celastrus (Agricultural Report, 1876, p. 45). Mr. Lintner, the present State entomologist of New York, thinks that the species may possibly have been published in fugitive articles in the Country Gentleman, but we have no means of ascertaining the facts.

MR. H. KEENAN, of Quaker City, Ohio, sends us the saw-fly, Dolerus unicolor (Beauv.), the of which is described as arvensis by Say, with a statement of its injuries to the fruit buds of pear trees by eating holes therein, the saw-flies occurring in vast numbers around the trees. This is the first case that has come to our knowledge of a Tenthredinid in the imago state injuring vegetation, and it is possible that some other insect may have been the real depredator.

SUPPOSED ARMY WORM IN NEW YORK AND OTHER EASTERN STATES. Numerous accounts have been published in the daily and weekly journals of the East, announcing wide-spread injury by the" army worm." This injury has occurred in New Jersey, on Long Island and in most of the grazing sections of New York, especially in St. Lawrence, Franklin, Jefferson, Oswego and Hamilton counties. Professor J. A. Lintner, State Entomologist of New York, has published the fullest account of its ravages in the Albany papers, which have been quoted in the Country Gentleman. Mr. J. Q. Adams, of Watertown, N. Y., writes to us under date of May 24th, as follows:

"Many hill pastures hereabouts are being ruined by what is called the army worm and while I cannot doubt but that it is Leucania unipuncta from its work, still I wish confirmation of the fact by an authority. My search in the fields has developed only a black headed, black spotted, smoky colored, naked worm that builds a nidus of its

own chips, which are pure green, and lives either close upon or below the surface of the soil. I know what the mature army worm is like from my books, but I find no mention of the immature larvæ. If you will favor me with a line or pamphlet describ ing the immature worm, you will help me out of the dilemma. Doubts suggest themselves because of the silken nidus which seems to me inconsistent with migratory habits.

The work of the pests, which I suppose has been checked the past week by the heavy rains we have had, is already considerable, some fields as large as forty acres being ruined and others showing only dead spots of a rod or two square. It is confined to the limestone ridges and to pastures. Are all our other pastures in danger? This is a dairy country and great harm will result if the work continues."

There seems to have been considerable doubt as to whether these worms were the true army worm or not. From specimens that were forwarded to us by Mr. Lintner and Mr. Adams, it would seem that there are two different species concerned in the work. The principal and larger one is the larva of Nephelodes violans Guen. We have known the insect since 1871, and it is tolerably common all over the eastern portion of the country. Walsh refers to it in an unpublished note as being found in meadows under stones at Rock Island, Ill. We have found it on a number of occasions since 1871 in different parts of Illinois and Missouri, usually hiding under planks or stones or cow dung in meadows, but occasionally feeding some distance up on a grass stalk, even in the hot sun. When at rest it is usually curled sidewise and surrounded with its frass which is of a bright green color. The larva is one of our largest cut-worms, distinguished from all others by the pale amber-colored head and the bronzy hue of the body; the pale dorsal and sub-dorsal stripes always showing distinctly on the dark, highly polished cervical and anal plates. It is referred to by Mr. G. H. French, of Carbondale, Ill., in the Prairie Farmer for April, 1878, and also in Professor Thomas's 2d Report on the Insects of Illinois (7th State Report, for 1877), pp. 99 and 220. We have also referred to it as taken from the stomach of a blue-bird, in the American Entomologist Vol. 111, p. 205. The larva is found of various sizes in the early spring, some being so large as to prove hibernation in this state, larval hibernation being further established by the occurrence of the specimen in the stomach of a blue bird shot in March, and by our having dug it up in a semi-torpid state last February in Virginia. The species may also hibernate, however, in the imago state, in which it is frequently captured in the winter, especially in the Southern States. The very young larvæ are bright-green with indications of the stripes which characterize the full-grown larva. The eggs have not yet been discovered. Pupation takes place in a naked cell just beneath the surface, and not till June or thereafter even in Missouri, the moth issuing in the autumn.

The wide-spread appearance and injury of the species the present spring, furnishes an excellent illustration of the fact, that species which have never before been looked upon as injurious to agriculture may suddenly become so. The insect has various parasites.

We notice that Mr. Lintner, disregarding the popular name of "bronzy cut-worm," by which we have characterized the larva, proposes to call it the "grass-cutter," on the plea that the term "worm" is, strictly speaking, used for the class Vermes, and should be discarded from entomological nomenclature as applying to larvæ. Such ultra-refined reasoning, could it have any following, would lead to absurd ends. Vulgar names rarely become popular except as they come from the people, and should, when coined by naturalists, be as far as possible specific of some peculiarity that will permit recognition of the object. The term grass-culter" is a general one hat would equally fit the army worm, the Pyralid larva referred to by Mr. Adams, and dozens of other Noctuid larvæ which are " grass-cutters" and to which the term "cut-worm" has been aptly applied. The term "worm," in the entomological sense, comes from the people and is universally employed by English writers, while its equivalent is employed in te same sense in French, German and other languages. To undertake to eliminate it from the vernacular is to attempt an innovation which will m et with deserved failure, and the impossibility of doing which Mr. Lintner concedes in his necessary use of the terms "army worm," "apple worm," "cabbage worm," etc. The second worm is a much smaller larva of a dingy color, with large piliferous spots, and evidently belonging to the Pyralida. We have also in past years found it in Missouri in pastures, mostly under cow dung, but have not yet reared it to the imago state. It evidently played a considerable part in the injury referred to by Mr. Lintner, and was more common than the Nephelodes in the fields referred to by Mr. Adams. It forms, for transformation, among the grass roots, an elongate pod of silk intermixed and covered on the outside with earth.

Without having seen the specimens it would have been safe to conclude that the reported injury was not from the true army worm, which nevers appears, in destructive numbers, so early in the season in the northern part of New York, and Professor Lintner was rightly led by this reasoning to doubt whether it was that specie. So far as we can learn, the Nephelodes larvæ have shown no propensity to travel from field to field as does the true army worm. They will soon disappear, from death or through transformation, and are not likely to attract any further attention the present season. Most of the remedies recommended for the army worm will apply to the Nephelodes larva, a full description of which we append from our notes, in order that it may be distinguished from the Leucania unipunctata, the larval changes of which are described in our 8th Mo. Report, pp. 184-5.

NEPHELODES VIOLANS-Larva: Larger specimens fully 1.9 inch long, largest in middle of body and tapering slightly each way, especially toward anus. Color brownish bronze, the surface faintly corrugulate but polished, the piliferous spots obsolete. A darker, highly polished cervical shield and anal plate. A medio-dorsal and sub

dorsal stripe of a buff, or dull flesh color, each stripe of about equal diameter, (nearly 0.04 inch on middle joints) forming narrower, paler lines on the plates and nearly converging on the anal plate; a similar but somewhat broader substigmatal stripe which is wavy below; between sub-dorsal and stigmatal stripes a faintly indicated pale line dividing the space nearly equally. Venter nearly of same buff color, with a tinge of green. Head perpendicular, immaculate, paler than body, rugulose, sub-polished, faintly translucent, pale dingy-olive, the jaws, and sometimes the mouth-parts, darker. Legs and prolegs of same pale olive color, the latter with a black band at outer base. Stigmata black.

The young larva is green but early shows the pale stripes. When about one third grown the general hue is olive-green with the cervical and anal plates but little darker. The head is pale, greenish, faintly freckled and with a few dark hairs; the sutures pale, the mandibles tinged with blood-red and brown at extremeties, and the ocelli distinct on a pale ground, the second and third from below, black, the others light. The three dorsal stripes and the narrower supra-stigmal line are very pale, greenishyellow, the broader sub-stigmatal stripe of a clearer cream-yellow with a faint car. neous tint.

One of the most marked Noctuid larve, at once distinguished from all others known to me when full grown by the pale, immaculate head (recalling copal) and the polished, bronzy or umber color of body. The upper stripes are often obsolete or subobsolete in the middle of body, but are persistent on the plates. The bronzy color in paler specimens is due to brown and yellow mottlings, and in dark specimens becomes nearly black; while the stripes are generally minutely mottled with carneous. Pupa-Normal, dark brown, the tip with two horizontal almost parallel spines. MIGRATION OF Butterflies.-Under date of June 2, Dr. J. H. Mellichamp, of Bluffton, S. C., sends the following interesting account of the migration of a butterfly, the species being Pieris monuste L., a tolerably common insect in the South. The larva, according to authors, feeds on Cleome pentaphylla, and Mr. E. A. Schwarz found it in Texas on Polanisia trachy perma. It is colored with faint violet and with citron-yellow stripe, the head, legs and venter being greenish-yellow, both head and body being spotted with black piliferous tubercles, the larger ones in four rows. The chrysalis is pale yellowish, spotted and shaded with brown, and characterized by two black filamentous spines on the middle of the body (fourth abdominal joint). Dr. M. says:

"I enclose specimens of a white butterfly, thousands of which have been steadily passing over this place from west to east (apparently against the wind) both yesterday and to-day. Savannah (Ga.) is west or south west of this place, and I am informed that oats had been destroyed there some two or three weeks ago by a caterpillar. Can this stranger be the parent of the same? Being white, they can be seen at a long distance, and they come along in twos, and threes, and fours and sometimes in a greater number-going steadily east or north-east-seldom stopping ("so hasty" as a darkey would say!), but occasionally alighting on a weed, or shrub, or flower (Gardenia).

men.

Usually they fly at the distance of fifteen or twenty feet from the earth. Most are white, and larger, I think, than the enclosed; a few are darker, like this other speciThey are shy and wary and very difficult to capture. A colored man said to me that they came in his field "like a swarm of bees," and that he "just couldn't stand it any longer-never saw such a thing in my life," and so dropped his hoe and came home!!

CLASSIFICATION OF THE MITES.-In a recent letter Dr. G. Haller, of Bern, Switzerland, already well known through his studies. of the Acarina, informs us that, after a great number of examinations, he finds that these curious creatures have not only three pairs of maxillæ and a true labium with palpi, but, as is already

known, two pairs of abdominal, as well as cephalothoracic, legs. He does not consider that they belong to the Arachnida, with which they have been hitherto placed, but that they are much more nearly allied to the Crustacea, from which they differ, of course, in breathing through tracheæ instead of gills. He believes they must form a fifth class of Arthropods equivalent to Crustacea, Myriapoda, Arachnida and Hexapoda.

CARRYING OUT THE LAW.-The British Parliament passed, in 1877, an act providing for the imposition of a fine for the person who should import living specimens of the Colorado potato-beetle. That this act did not remain an empty letter is proven by the following case: In February of this year it came to the knowledge of the authorities that a man in Devonshire had in his possession living specimens of the Doryphora, which he had brought over from America, and which he refused to give up. The man was immediately tried, convicted and fined £5, notwithstanding he proved that he had meanwhile killed the beetles. The Devonshire farmers are said to be much dissatisfied at the small amount of the fine, the maximum penalty fixed by law being £10.

LOCUSTS IN MEXICO IN 1880.-We are indebted to Dr. E. Palmer, for the following data concerning the appearances of locusts of unknown species in Mexico last autumn. They appeared during October at Chihuahua, at Saltillo and at Parras. At Saltillo they attacked the winter wheat, which was sufficiently advanced to be injured by them.-A. S. Packard, Fr.

ERRATUM.-A rather annoying error crept into the article on Cicada in the last number. On page 481, line fourteen, from bottom, "1860" should be "1660," that being the year of the last simultaneous appearance of the two broods that appear this year.

ANTHROPOLOGY.1

ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN NICARAGUA.-Number 383 of the Smithsonian Contributions is an important addition to our knowledge of Ancient America, entitled "Archæological Researches in Nicaragua," By J. F. Bransford, M. D., Passed Assistant Surgeon, U. S. Navy. Washington City: Published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1881." Dr Bransford made three journeys to Nicaragua, one in 1872, with Commander E. P. Lull, a second in 1876, when several months were spent in archæological explorations, and a third in 1877, at which time the author's investigations were extended to Nicoya, in Costa Rica. Excepting the last named excursions, all the excavations were made on the Island of Ometepec, and to a slight extent near San Jorge on the mainland.

The geology and natural scenery of the island, the lake, and the surrounding country, are so graphically described that the 1 Edited by Prof. Oris T. MASON, Columbian College, Washington, D. C.