the sub-family Prionidæ. My friend, Mr. Melvill, lately (1885) bought a specimen from Mr. Janson, of Little Russell Street, who wrote to him as follows: "Two specimens were received from Signor de Laenda, of Bahia, who obtained them from the interior : one of these, the smaller, I sold to M. van de Poll, of Amsterdam, in July last (1885); the other, now sent to you, I had intended keeping, as, beyond a specimen in the British Museum and one. in Mr. Alexander Fry's collection, there are, I believe, no others. in London, or probably in this country." Mr. C. O. Waterhouse of the British Museum has confirmed this statement. The "Catalogus Coleopterorum" gives the names of over 73,000 species of beetles; the Curculionidæ and Chrysomelidæ being each represented by over 10,000 species, the Geodephaga and Lamellicornes by 8000 each, and Longicornes by 7500. NOTES ON OTHER INSECTS. In the foregoing notes on insects, I have placed Lepidoptera in the first place, because butterflies are certainly the best known and the most favoured, on account of their displaying themselves everywhere and their vivid colouring. In reality, the highest order of insects is Hymenoptera, then follow Coleoptera, which are succeeded by Lepidoptera. I shall now refer to the Hymenoptera, and then proceed with the other orders in their proper sequence. HYMENOPTERA. Bees and Wasps.-I have frequently alluded to the honey-bees and wasps in my journal, and as I did not collect them (though I have about a dozen species), I think it unnecessary to say more than a word about them. On one occasion, in the spring (September 3, 1883), we came across a very neatly shaped wasps' nest in a tree, and, wishing to preserve it, I had the insects driven out, carried off the nest, and placed it in another tree some hundred yards off. On returning in the evening, we found that the wasps had discovered their nest, and were again in possession. These The cerebral ganglia are more developed in ants than in any other insect. Belt's "Nicaragua," p. 28. were stinging wasps, and their nest was made of grey paper-like material. Later in the season (November 5), a colony of very small black bees made a nest of clay in our rancho, the entrance being through a covered way built up the log wall. Dr. Gardner* gives a lists of eighteen honey-bees, with their local names only. They mostly belong to the genus Melipoma, Illig. Mr. Bates† also refers at some length to bees and wasps. Ants. Among the many entomological specimens I collected are some pretty red-yellow-and-black hairy ants. They are Mutilla tristis, Klug.; M. perspicillaris, Klug.; M. spinosa, var.; and another. They are fierce and aggressive, and are exactly imitated by a rhyncophorous beetle of the genus Cyphus (C. Linnai, Sch.). I must devote a few more lines to an ant already referred to at some length under the native names of cabeçudo and tanajura. The abnormally hard- and large-headed workers carried off my provisions, and destroyed my flannel shirts, so I reciprocated by frying and eating the plump and toothsome females. The workers are the cabeçudo, Atta cephalotes, Linn., A. sexdentata, Latr.; the large-bodied males and females are A. abdominalis, Smith. The females are twice the size of the males, and over two inches across the wings. The English name is umbrella, or carrying, ant. Mr. Bates calls them saüba ant, and devotes ten pages to an account of their habits; he gives figures of the workers and females. I have repeatedly seen armies of the workers ascend a tree and strip off every leaf; these fall to the ground, and are then cut up into convenient sizes, and carried off by another legion to the nest. I was told that the ants form underground mushroombeds, and feed their larvæ with the fungi that grow on the decaying leaves. The ants often struggle along with a piece of leaf a dozen times larger than themselves clasped in their mandibles, and held erect and so firmly that one can lift the leaf from the ground, and yet they cannot be persuaded to leave hold. It is amusing to observe what appears like a long line of animated leaves crossing a road or moving along some fallen tree-trunk "Travels in Brazil," p. 248. +"The Naturalist on the River Amazons," vol. ii. p. 40. over a stream. On examination, you find two lines of ants-one army going towards the nest, each individual with its leafy burden; the other running along in the opposite direction much faster and returning to the field of their labours. Whenever an ant dropped his load on the way home, I never noticed him pick it up again; he invariably turned back and went for a fresh leaf. Thus, in some places, such as a deep wheel-rut, where many ants dropped their burdens in ascending its precipitous sides, there was quite a little heap of leaf fragments. I found that my dog was fond of catching and eating the lemon-scented workers. The nests abound everywhere in the campos, and present the spectacle of large heaps of pellets of earth, sometimes many square yards in extent and a couple of feet high. These mounds are formed of the earth excavated from their subterranean galleries, each several pellet having been moulded and carried up in the workers' jaws. I have often watched these energetic insects staggering up with their load to the entrance of their gallery, then running to the edge of the embankment, dropping their burden over the side and gaily returning to their subterranean labour. On November 28, 1883, I found a small nest of ants on the branch of a shrub; it was spherical in shape, about one inch and a half in diameter, and composed of red micaceous earth. NEUROPTERA. Termites. Of all disagreeable-looking insects, I think the soft-bodied, semi-transparent, dirty whitey-grey termite workers are at once the ugliest and the most repulsive. We, fortunately, never suffered much from their depredations, although occasionally in camp we discovered a band of them crossing the floor of our rancho, and found their covered ways, built of a thin crust of red earth up the side of the wall, constructed so as to reach unobserved the object of their attacks; but as we promptly destroyed them and their galleries, I had no opportunity of watching them indoors. Their huge conical parti-coloured nests, which are very abundant, form one of the principal features in the scenery of the highland campos. The general colour is red, but additions are often made in white or grey earth; and as the nest is frequently enlarged, at length the original hemispherical or conical shape is lost under the numerous bosses which have been thrown out in all directions. Professor Drummond has published a very interesting article on the "Use of the Termite in the Economy of Nature." He argues that they perform in the tropics a similar work to that which is carried out by the earthworm in the temperate zones. DERMAPTERA OR ORTHOPTERA. Mr. Francis Walker states, at the end of his catalogue, that the name Dermaptera, given to these insects by De Geer, has the right of priority; they were afterwards called Orthoptera by Olivier. Respecting their geographical distribution, he says they generally are more limited to warm regions than are the other orders of insects, which also more or less precede them in time of yearly appearance. In regard to the way in which ramifications from the Dermaptera in tropical regions have converged towards the poles, some tribes appear to have left their first habitation entirely as the increasing heat and dryness deprived them of circumstances essential to their existence, and some seem to have increased in numbers and variety after their migration. The advance to the north from the equatorial regions may be included in four principal divisions: first, through China to Japan; second, from the East Indies along the Himalaya and other mountain-ranges to West Asia and to Europe; third, from Central Africa to North Africa and Europe; fourth, from Equatorial America to North America. The regions on the south of the equator from three principal divisions: first, that of South America, where insect life is most abundant; second, Australia and the numerous neighbouring islands; third, South Africa, where the insects are least numerous. Mr. Brunner de Wattenwyl, in his essay on the geographical distribution of the Blattariæ, has divided the globe into sixteen regions-nine of these are north of the equator, two are south, five are on both sides, of which South America towards the Atlantic is one. Mr. Walker gives a list of the special genera of all the Dermaptera found in each of these sixteen regions. Good Words, May, 1885. Section I. COCKROACHES (Blattaria). I collected some thirty species of Blattariæ, including Petasodes dominicana, Sauss. ; Tarraga guttiventris; Proscratea conspersa, Sauss.; Brachycola vittata (?); Epilampra agathina, Sauss.; E. subconspersa, Clk. ; E. caliginosa, Clk.; Pseudomops femoralis, Clk. The names are taken from the specimens, and the authorities from the "Catalogue of the Specimens of Blattariæ, in the collection of the British Museum," by Francis Walker, F. L.S., 1868, from which book these notes are also extracted. In a summary at the end of the volume, Mr. Walker says, "In this catalogue, 686 species of Blattariæ are recorded, and there are many yet unnamed. It is not easy to ascertain correctly their geographical distribution. Some species pass from one region to another, and multiply excessively in artificial circumstances. Other species are of rare occurrence, and the continuance of them may be partly insured by their seeming to be what they are not, or by their mimicry of various kinds of Coleoptera and Phasmidæ, and of Myriapoda, and of Isopod crustacea. . The fore wings are remarkable on account of their various structure. . . . The groups cannot be arranged according to their affinities in a line, or in a circular series; in other words, several different lines or arrangements may equally well express the natural system." Section II. LOCUSTS AND GRASSHOPPERS (Saltatoria). I collected some twenty species, including, among the grasshoppers (Gryllidae), Gryllus capensis, Linn.; and among the locusts (Locustida), Meroncidius varius, Bates; Steirodon citrifolium, Serv.; Diplophyllus mundus, Clk.; Pterochroza pictifolia; besides undetermined species of the following genera: Concephalus; Phylloptera, Serv.; Cephalosama, Serv.; Mesops, Burm. ; Minorissa, Macrolyristes (?), Caloptenus, Burm.; and Stenobothrus, Fisch. The names are taken from the specimens and the Catalogue of the Specimens of Dermaptera Saltatoria in the Collection of the British Museum," by Francis Walker, F.L.S., 1868-71. That author states that the genus Pterochroza, with the closely allied Cycloptera, "excel all other Saltatoria in the 66 |