Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/473

Rh wall, and waited a second or two; then most resolutely he ran to her again without any precaution at all, grasped her with his fore feet, and appeared to press both palpal organs upon the region of her genital aperture. They remained motionless in this position fully half a minute. He then withdrew very slowly indeed towards the wall, and there suspended himself by a single line of about three inches. He seemed to be dying, and I thought she had bitten him. However, in five minutes he revived, and went off to the niche in the wall whence he had first come. She meanwhile awoke, and returned to her usual place in the centre of her web. I hope to record the date when the eggs thus fecundated are deposited. In the same connection, I may mention that in another part of my little garden I have just seen two males captured and devoured by females of this species; but in neither instance did it seem to me that the male thus caught was on amorous purpose bent. Once certainly he had dropped from above into the web accidentally, and he was unable to extricate himself before he was attacked and swathed in silk.— (Manchester).

Jumping Beans.—I do not know whether your pages are open to discussion, but if they should be, I should like to invite an explanation as to the method by which a perfect insect, imprisoned under certain conditions as a pupa, liberates itself on emerging from that state. At the World's Fair at Chicago, and subsequently last summer at Earl's Court, certain seeds of a Mexican Euphorbiaceous plant were sold under the designation of "Jumping Beans." These seeds, if placed in a warm hand, or subjected to sunshine or a higher temperature, would move, or jump with short jerks, and by some people who knew nothing of their nature were considered "wonders" and "uncanny." They were sold at a considerable price at Chicago, and at a fair and reasonable price at Earl's Court. Of course the solution was evident to anyone who knew anything about lepidopterous larvæ, namely, that they enclosed some internal feeding larva. I procured a few for observation in June, 1857; and in September, 1858, three Tortrix moths (Carpocapsa, I believe) emerged. The problem I want to solve is, how do these imago forms find their exit from the extremely hard and tough walls of the seed in which they have been enclosed, so tough and hard that it requires a very sharp knife to cut through them? The aperture through which the small moth escapes is a perfect cylindrical hole, as true as if bored by an instrument. In two of the cases in which the perfect insect came forth I found the empty pupa-case lying clear of the seed capsule. In a third case the pupa protruded about half its length through the aperture, and was dead, apparently wanting strength to effect its exit. New how is this circular aperture, by which the moth escapes,