Abstract
THE last number of this journal contains several valuable papers, of which the most important is undoubtedly Mr. Carter's description of the Development of Sorastrum spinulosum, which will be read with interest by botanists. Dr. Leconte, of Philadelphia, contributes a list of beetles collected in Vancouver's Island by Messrs. H. and J. Matthews, with descriptions of a considerable number of new species. Dr. Leconte does not cite any of the species from the same locality described by Mr. Francis Walker in Lord's “Naturalist in Vancouver's Island and British Columbia;” in all probability he will find that some of his supposed new species are already described.—Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston publishes a continuation of his paper on the Coleoptera of St. Helena, the general results of which we propose to give on its completion.—A third entomological paper is by Mr. Fred. Smith, on the Parasitism of Rhipiphorus paradoxus, in answer to a communication in the November number by Mr. Andrew Murray, in which that gentleman maintained that the larva of Rhipiphorus, which is always found in the cells of wasps, is a parasite rather in the classical than in the natural history sense of the term; that is to say, that it merely lives upon the food furnished to the wasp-larva, and does not feed upon the substance of the latter. In opposition to this view, Mr. Smith cites observations made by himself and by the late Mr. F. Stone, which show clearly enough that the larva of Rhipiphorus is not hatched until the wasp-larva is approaching maturity, that it speedily fastens upon its companions, and appropriates the latter's materials with so much avidity as to attain its full growth in about forty-eight hours.—Other purely zoological papers are—A description of a new British spider belonging to the genus Epeira, by Mr. John Blackwall; descriptions of two new species of sun birds from the Island of Hainan, by Mr. Robert Swinhoe; and a notice of some nondescript bones in the skull of osseous fishes, by Mr. George Gulliver. The bones referred to in the last-mentioned paper are to be found in the head of the codfish at the hind part of each post-frontal bone. There is one on each side of the head, and their form is that of a sub-conical cup. The author calls them expost-frontal ossicles. Similar limpet-shaped ossicles hitherto unnoticed occur in other parts of the head.—In a joint paper on the Nomenclature of the Foraminifera (the thirteenth of a long-continued series), Messrs. Jones, Parker, and Kirkby describe the extraordinarily varied forms under which a species, to which they attribute the name of Trochammina pusilla, presents itself. These forms, which have of course received a great number of different names, are represented by the authors on a plate; they occur fossil in almost all formations from the Permian to the Tertiaries, and some of them are living in our present seas.—In a short contribution to Jurassic Palæontology, Mr. Ralph Tate indicates the necessity for breaking up the great genus Cerithium, and notices that the genus Kilvertia, established in 1863 by Lycett, at the expense of Cerithium, is identical with Exelissa, Piette (1861), of which he describes a new British Liassic species. He also proposes the formation of a new genus, Cryptaulax, for another group of Cerithia, in which the aperture more resembles that of Chemnitzia, and the posterior canal is concealed by the outer lip.
The Annals and Magazine of Natural History.—
No. 24. December, 1869. (Taylor and Francis.)
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The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Nature 1, 189 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001189d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001189d0