and killed. Or the sides of such an apartment could be made of gauze, fine enough not to allow the passage of the moths, but yet large enough to let the parasites out. Such a building could be placed in the midst of a plantation. I believe that eventually we shall have to rely mainly upon such indirect measures as a protection for our crops. It might even be worth while to undertake a positive cultivation of the parasites, at least at those times when the race has greatly diminished in numbers. It has often been observed, in studying the history of those insects which are subjected to unnatural conditions by man's cultivation of the ground, that there is an alternation of years or of series of years in which the insects are found to be very destructive, or to have almost entirely disappeared. These alternations are partly due to the influence of the seasons, but largely to the attacks of other insects. At first the destructive insects are found to be very numerous, but an examination will show that they have already been attacked by parasites which kill them, while the parasites themselves develop. This process goes on until the parasites have so far outnumbered their prey as nearly to exterminate them, when they will no longer be able to find food, and will themselves perish. Then once more the destructive insects will have an opportunity to multiply, and so the rotation will be continued. Now it is at the time when the destructive insects have been reduced to the smallest numbers that the enlightened agriculturist will find it most practicable to adopt such measures that their numbers may never again increase. Knowing how rapidly these insects increase, when not held in control by the forces of nature, he will feel that every effort of his to stop them at the first step will be an investment of labor at compound interest for a long time to come. Who then would count the trouble? But

he must know what to do.

P. S.-I desire to correct an error in the former part of this biography, kindly pointed out to me by Mr. V. T. Chambers, of Covington, Kentucky, in the current volume of the AMERICAN NATURALIST, p. 489–490. On p. 338, I said that C. coffeelium was the only species of the genus known outside of the limits of Europe. This is a mistake. While I was in Brazil, Mr. Chambers described in the Canadian Entomologist, iii (1871) p. 23-25, a species from the United States, called C. albella.

As all but one of Mr. Chambers' references, in his note of correction, were wrong. I must, in order to be able to compare his species with the others of the genus, suppare it also due to negligence that he (through Mr. Stainton) describes the silvery gray metallic spot of the fore wings as apical, instead of at the inner angle. If this su‡‚© sition is correct, C. albellum seems more nearly related to C. coffeellum than any of the other species, but may be known from it by having the spot at the inner angle of the fore wings silvery gray metallic, with very distinct black margins before and

behind, and an indistinct pale golden streak along the base of the fringe from the costa not quite to the inner angle; while it seems not to have the two oblique lines of black scales described in C. coffeellum, nor the golden band which partially surrounds the spot in that species.

Mr. Chambers says also, in his note of correction, that "in the Transactions of the London Entomological Society, Ser. 2, Vol. v, pp. 21 and 27, and in Ser. 3, Vol. ii, p. 101, certainly two, and if my [his] memory is not at fault, three species [of Cemiostoma], are described from India." I have examined the pages to which he evidently intends to refer, and find that both the species mentioned, C. wailesellum and C. lotellum, are said to come from England.

I have had a new edition of the accompanying plate struck off, because the former one contained some errors introduced by the artist, who transferred my figures from paper to wood. Some of the figures are incomplete, because I have only drawn what I could see. This is especially the case with the larva.

ON THE OCCURRENCE OF FACE URNS IN BRAZIL.

BY PROF. CHARLES FRED. HARTT.

ON my visit last year to Brazil, my good friend, Senhor Ferreira Penna, showed me in the Museum of Pará a remarkably fine, well-preserved, and curiously-shaped burial vase of the class called by the Germans gesichtsurnen, or face urns, which had been obtained from a cave on the Rio Maracá, a little river in the Province of Pará, emptying into the Amazonas some fifty miles above Macapá. Of this urn, at his desire, I made the accompanying rough sketch with a few notes for publication in the NATU

RALIST.

The urn was intended to represent a human figure sitting on a low bench or stool. The body is cylindrical and, including the stool, is just about two feet in height.* Its diameter is about 9 inches. The legs spring from the body at a distance from its base equal to about one-fifth the height of the body. They are very short, small, cylindrical and hollow. They bend slightly to represent the knee, below which is a broad constriction intended for an ornament. Below this the leg swells to a ball as represented in the engraving. The feet are flat, irregular in shape, cut off squarely in front and furnished with six toes each. They are so constructed as to rest on the ground. The arms have their origin at a distance from the top of the body of the urn less than a

* The measurements given in this article are approximate, but were carefully esti mated.

quarter of its height. They extend downward at an angle of 45°, more or less, and diverge a little. They bend abruptly downward at the elbow, the fore arm being perpendicular. The hands, resting on the knees, project forward like feet and are cut off squarely, the fingers, five in number, being indicated by scratches. This awkward turning forward of the elbows recalls the similar position of the arm of an Indian warrior, in the well known picture of the "Marriage of Pocahontas." The arms of the vase are cylindrical like the legs and not only longer but thicker than they. An armlet is represented just above the knee-like elbow, and a bracelet two or three inches above each wrist. Just above and between the shoulders are two short prominent ridges, shown in the engraving, which may be intended to represent clavicles. Оп each side, just back of the shoulder, is a similar ridge curved into a loop, the two ends of which are turned forward. On the back, coinciding nearly with the middle third of the mesial line is a thin finlike crest ornamented with lines drawn perpendicularly to the body. The figure is furnished with a carefully moulded, erect phallus. On the thigh is a low, cylindrical prominence, concave on the summit, shaped like the centrum of an ichthyosaur.

The head, answering as a cover, is in a separate piece, forming a hollow truncated cone 9-10 inches in height, the base being in outside measurement a little smaller than that of the upper part of the body of the urn. The top of the head is flat, with a projecting rim like a narrow brimmed hat and on the surface are a large number of sharp points, arranged in regular quincunx order. On the front of the cover is represented a face, the general arrangement of whose features is well shown in the sketch. The bounding line, eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth are all in high relief and were applied after the head-like cover had been moulded. Around the base of the head-like cover are six holes to which other perforations in the rim of the base correspond. These were intended for strings used in tying on the cover, after which a brown wax was used to lute the two together. Of this material a portion still remains and bears the impress of what appears to be palm straw.

The base on which the figure sits is square, solid and supported by two upright, transverse pieces like sled runners; the whole resembling one of the curious stools hewn out of a solid block and used by the Amazonian Indian nowadays.