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Psyche 2:97-116, 1877.

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PSYCHE.
ORGAN OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB EDITED BY GEORGE DIMMOCK AND B. PICKMAN MANX. Vol. 11.1 Cambridge, Mass., Jan.-Feb., 1878. [Nos. 45-46. Recent Progress of Entomology in North America. FIRST ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.
In selecting a subject for the first address from this chair, I have had in mind the principal objects of our Club. We have
favored the biological side of our science - taking biology in its broadest sense - as the most important, the most interesting, and yet on the whole the least known. Anatomical studies also enter into our plan, but mere descriptive entomology, so far at least as it relates to perfect forms, and all vexed questions of nomenclature, have been almost wholly ignored, both at our meetings and in our journal. For, however important these latter subjects may be - to which, indeed, our members have elsewhere given a fair share of attention - we have desired, in the formation of our Club, and the establishment of our journal, to uphold the superior value of questions which have a more direct philosophical bearing. If, from time to tiit~e, we pause, and consider the work already accomplished, we shall be stimu- lated to better and more earnest endeavor for the future ; we shall see the direction in which we need to advance, and can draw comparisons which are not without value. I propose then
a general review of recent progress in this country, in the direction of our favorite studies. By proper grouping we may obtain a better idea of what has been accomplished. A separate reference to each paper by name will hardly be necessary, since the review is confined to the publications of a single year (1877), and the admirable record of our diligent Secretary will soon place the complete series in our hands.
Histories of insects furnish the fundamental data upon which Puche 2 097-1 16 tprc-1903). htlp:/lpsyclir cnlclub org/2/2-W17 html



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will be based much of the future progress of entomological science. In this direction Mr. W. H. Edwards has this year contributed some of the most important facts. In the continua- tion of his admirable work on North American butterflies, the transformations and imaginal variations of Papilio turnus are represented on three plates executed with the rarest fidelity. Eleven drawings of the perfect insect appear, nine of the cater- pillar in all its stages, and one each of the egg and chrysalis. Without enlarging on the beauty of these plates, we can safely say that in no country have butterflies been so generously illus- trated. Mr. Edwards finds three broods of this butterfly in West Virginia, and, as in Papilio ajax, the spring brood is not made up solely from the produce of the last brood of the pre- ceding year, but also, in part, from wintered chrysalids of both the earlier broods. The distribution of the butterfly, its habits, as well as those of the caterpillar, the food and the natural enemies of the latter, and the peculiar partial dimorphism of the butterfly, are fully discussed; the latter will be referred to again. In the " Canadian Entomologist," Mr. Edwards has given us also the life history of Phyciodes tharos, with descriptions of the insect in all its stages. Although one of our commonest butter- flies, whose early stages had been sought with care, we have, until recently, known nothing of its history. The eggs are laid in masses, on Asters; the caterpillars feed in clusters, and are at no period protected by a web; the winter is passed in the larval stage, and there are,annually, several broods of the but- terfly ; in the Catskills two, in West Virginia four. In the Catskills, the autumn brood is the form- described as P. tharos proper, while the spring brood, the form P. mar&, is made up from both the broods of the previous year, a portion of the caterpillars from the former brood passing into premature hiber- nation. In West Virginia there are four broods : the first, from wintered caterpillars, is P. marcia, the second and third P. tha- ros, and the fourth both P. tharos and P. marcia; a large
proportion of the larvae hibernating.
The first brood, however,
is wholly made up of the remnant of the fourth brood of the previous year, no lethargy or premature hibernation of cater- pillars being noticed in this southern station; it might therefore



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be proper to speak of only three broods, the produce of a portion of the last of which is prematurely developed, and then gives birth to a mixed progeny, cold effecting the change to P. marcia at both the beginning and end of the season. A curious fact was elicited by Mr. Edwards' experiments, viz. : that cater- pillars maturing in one season moult only four times, while those hibernating moult three times before winter, and twice after- wards.
Mr. Edwards gives us also the history of an allied form, Phy- ciodes harrisii. I also traced the con~plete history of this insect ten years ago, and my unpublished observations agree almost entirely with those of Mr. Edwards. The eggs are laid in masses, on Diplopappus, and the larvae feed in company. Mr. Edwards reared them in confinement, and bi no web at any stage was spun for protection or other purpose" ; in nature, however, a close web, resembling that of Euphydryas phaeton, is made, but is deserted on the approach of winter, when the caterpillars hibernate, doubtless under sticks and stones in the vicinity of their feeding spots. Mr. Edwards describes every stage of the insect previous to the imago.
He has also given us some scattered facts and experiments upon several species of Brenthis and Argynnis, supplementary to those he has previously published.
A fourth species of butterfly whose history we owe to the same investigator is Satyrus nephele. Descriptions of all the early stages are given ; the eggs are laid on the steins and blades of grass, but, in confinement at least, many are dropped loosely on the ground. The eggs hatch late, and the young larvae hibernate without feeding, as is generally the case in this sub- family. The larvse mature slowly, only one brood being pro- duced annually, and that late in the season. Mr. C. V. Riley has given us two or three fine histories of unusual interest. The first is a complete life-history of another of the genera of Meloidae, only that of Meloe and Sitaris having been known hitherto- genera remarkable for their habits and extraordinary metamorphoses. More recently, Licht- enstein has shown a similar hypermetamorphosis in Cantharis. All these three genera undergo parallel changes ; they first



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appear as active larvae on flowers frequented by bees, and attach themselves to the body of the bees, thus gaining access to the hives, where they assume a maggot-like shape, and feed on honey. While digging for eggs of Caloptenus spretus, Mr. Riley found many pseudo-pup= of blister beetles, and it occurred to him that there might be some connection between the two; which seemed the more probable since these, and other beetles of the same family, abound in the dry western regions where Acridians are so prolific. Following up this clue, he discovered the early larva or bb trinngulin7' of two species of Epicauta and one or two species of Macrobasis in the eggs of the common destructive locust, and also in those of Caloptenus differentialis. He has, as yet, completely followed the history of only Epicanta vittata, the eggs of which are laid in masses in the ground. On hatching, the larvae scatter in search of eggs, burrow into the pods, and feed upon the contents ; one larva requiring an entire pod; if two enter the same pod, only the fittest sur- vives. The young larva, before entering the eggs, has the triungulin form common, so far as is known, to all Meloidae, but after sucking a single egg it undergoes a moult, and assumes a form resembling the ordinary coleopterous grub - the second larva; this form, however, differs so much in its earlier and later life, a moult intervening, that Mr. Riley Itas aptly termed the earlier the carabidoid, and the later the scarabaeidoid stage. These differences have not been observed in other Meloidae. After another moult, the antepenultimate or pseudo-pupa stage is reached ; this Mr. Riley prefers to call the coarctate larva, as it merely becomes rigid and dormant, in which state generally it hibernates. In the spring anotlier moult takes place, and the larva returns to the scarabaeidoid form ; but then, partaking of no food, burrows in the ground, changes to a pupa, and, in less than a week, to a full-fledged beetle. In Meloe and Sitaris the later transformations take place in the skin of the coarctate larva.
Following up his studies upon the Meloidae, Mr. Riley has discovered a remarkable insect of this group, hitherto unknown, to which he has given the name of Hornia, and which differs from other Meloidae by some remarkable characteristics, being



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a degraded form.
It lives in the burrows of Anthophora sponsa, a mason-bee building in clay-banks, and probably spends most of its time in the bee-gallery. The triungulin has not been discovered, but the other forms of the larva exhibit the ordi- nary characters of the fan~ily.
Another discovery by Mr. Riley is that of the curious egg- mass of Corydalus cornutus, an insect extremely interesting from its relationship to carboniferous types found both in this country and in Europe. The larva and pupa have long Leen known, but the place of deposition and the nature of its eggs have remained unknown ; or rather, eggs of another in- sect, which Mr. Riley believes to be a Belostoma, have been accredited to it, on the aut.hority of the late Mr. Walsh. Hal- deman's figures of the eggs have been very generally over- looked. As it now appears, the eggs are laid in oval masses, upon leaves of trees overhanging tlie water, or upon rocks ; the mass is composed of two or three thousand eggs covered with a common white or cream-colored albuminous secretion. The young leave the egg-mass at night and in company. Of precisely similar interest is the allied genus Pteronarcp, living specimens of which Dr. Hagen has studied to good pur- pose. He observed that the male taps upon the surface on which it is seated, with its abdomen, as Barnston had observed in the case of another Perlarian. He witnessed also the remarkable union of the sexes. Oviposition he did not see, but tlie eggs, probably dropped in tlie night, were laid in little heaps in the grass or in the water. He studied the curious gills with which Newport has made us acquainted, but which in life are more bag-shaped, with the fringe less widely spread than preserved specimens would lead us to suppose. No motion was seen in these gills after the most careful observation ; and the whole appearance of the gills, on internal examination, was that of an organ unfitted for breathing, although the tracheas were very abundant in their immediate vicinity ; on the other hand the abdominal spiracles, at least as far as the seventh segment, were perfectly formed for respiration, More- over the creatures not only did not seek the water, but on falling into it, or being plqced in it, they scrambled out with all



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speed.
These observations rectify, in many important partic- ulars, the statements of Newport, based of course on an exam- ination of alcoholic specimens. Dr. Hagen noticed, moreover, a remarkable degree of individual variation in these insects, especially in the form of the head and prothorax and in the female organs of generation. a
During the summer of 1876, Rev. Henry C. McCook stud- ied the habits and architecture of the wood-ant (formica rufa', whose mounds are abundant in the mountains of Pennsylvania ; and has just given a very interesting account of his observa- tions. He camped for a week in the 'immediate vicinity of a large colony of nearly seventeen hundred hills, covering an area of twenty hectars. Although Huber, Forel, and others have already given long accounts of the habits and architect- ural skill of this ant, the independent testimony of an observer on this side of the Atlantic has a peculiar value, and appears at first sight to indicate some diversity in the habits of this species on the two continents. I am not aware whether any differ- ences between the ants themselves have been observed; but as differences, at least varietal, do occur in American and Euro- pean examples of Formica sanguinea and Lasius flavus, two other common ants found in both countries, the distinction of habits found by Mr. McCook in Formica rufa has an impor- tant bearing.
The mounds made by these ants are cones of greater or less regularity, generally three or four metres in circumference at the base, and seven and a half to nine decimetres high ; one double hill - the blending of two hills - was found measuring more than seventeen and a half metres in circumference, and considerably more than a metre in height. Not only do the hills appear to be grouped in large colonies, but each colony is made up of family clusters, probably the work of a single republic. The hills are mostly composed of earth brought from beneath, but the surface is strewn, to a greater or less extent, with bits of decayed wood, pine needles and fragments of straw, though apparently not to the extent that is described in the nests of the European ant. This surface material is brought in by surface foraging. The nest is honeycombed



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through and through with galleries, most of which lie in liori- zontal strata, but show no such enlargement into chambers at special points as occurs in European hills. The nests when injured are repaired immediately, not by adding grain to grain, to make a solid mass, afterwards to be mined by galleries, but by constructing these galleries at once with little pellets formed of a few cemented grains of earth, fastened to the parts already in place; in this way arches are sprung at needed points, and galleries are formed by filling in the spaces between the arches. Wherever great damage has occurred, the work goes on simultaneously from many centres by the springing of arches from piers erected at symmetrical intervals. In the same way stories are added to the structure. The work often goes on with surprising rapidity, so that mounds half the average size of the mature hills may be built in a single year; but when once they have reached the normal size, a period of thirty years may show little change, the multiplication of the colony being provided for by the construction of new mounds. Mr. McCook estimates that usually nearly thirty cubic decimetres of material are raised by new con~munities in a single year. As all this has to be brought from beneath the ground, through galleries in direct connection with the interior of the mound, the extent of these underground passages must be very great. By stamping on the ground, one such gallery was traced, just beneath the surface of the soil, for a distance of eighteen metres, and it is probable that there are as many subterranean galleries as there are superficial paths. A curious fact was noticed in the orientation of the mounds ;
that while they were nearly
conical, the longest face of the cone lay toward the west and its steepest slope toward the east ; this peculiarity was only noticed in the mountains and was not invariably true, but ob- tained as a general rule, whatever the slope of the ground. Huber states that these ants close the approaches to their nests at night and open them again by day. Forel says that they seem to close them only when they appear to have no further use for them; and Mr. McCook always found them open. Huber states further th~t the ants are inactive during



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104
the night ; Forel, that they may seek their food by night as well as by day, but do not then occupy themselves in building and remarks that their activity in general depends upon tempera- ture, and they are often quiet at night simply because it is too cool for them to work. McCook's observations point to the same conclusion, but he found the ants both feeding and build- ing at night, their activity in building clearly depending upon the moisture of the ground; when the nights were cold he found the ants torpid on the trees, beside their aphid flocks, just as the cold had surprised them. Here they would resume their activities with returning warmth. Observations in mid- winter show that the colonies then remain still active in the galleries directly beneath their mounds; at the same time the interstices of the mounds may be occupied by the hardier white- ants and by cockroaches. No colonies of Aphides nor any source of food were found within reach ; but in this connection it may be mentioned that Dr. Leidy has this year found in a single formicary of Lasius flavus two large herds of Aphides and one of Coecidae, sufficient, no doubt, to feed the colony for an entire winter.
The paths diverging from the ant-hills invariably lead to plants or trees occupied by colonies of Aphides. These are visited by immense numbers of ants, who gorge themselves with honey-dew and return to feed the occupants of the nest. Mr. McCook was astonished, however, to see how few of these GLrepletes," as he calls them, actually returned to the nest ; and thus was led to the discovery that many of them were stopped on their return, by hungry workers, a pensioners" he calls them, emerging from the openings of the subterranean galleries, and were compelled to disgorge, so that the queens, males and young ants at home must have fared ill. Mr. McCook has made the interesting discovery of another source of honey-dew for ants. At former meetings I have called your attention to the description given twelve years ago, by Guende, of peculiar organs on some of the hinder segments of Lycaenid larvae, which may emit a drop of fluid. This is the new pasture which Mr. McCook has independ en tl discovered by seeing the ants stroke the larvae with their antennae, in the



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familiar manner in which they solicit honey-dew from Aphides. Although search was made fcr beetles, only a single specimen ,
of Tmesiphorus costalis was found in the nests. Mr. McCook was unable to obtain any show of fight between tliese ants, excepting tliat individuals which had fallen into water (which is supposed to destroy their odor) were always attacked violently by their confreres. Every expedient was tried : colonies from distant hills were thrown upon a nest while it was covered with a swarming and nervous mass of ants, without the least effect ; not the slightest sign of hostility could be induced ; the imported ants always melted away into the general community as if at home. These are the principal observations offered by Mr. McCook, which we hope he may continue in the same spirit.
Our ants offer a fruitful field of
observation to those who have the leisure to observe them. The only remaining insect, whose history has this year been given in full, with the exception of injurious species, which I reserve until the end, is our common Platysamia cecropia, of which Mr. T. G. Gentry has given a detailed description in all its stages.
In a paper on the classification of butterflies I have given generalized histories, as it were, of the different family groups, of which four are recognized ; and 1 have attempted to exhibit the comparative inferiority of structure of the swallow-tails, bringing forward several considerations hitherto unnoticed, some of which may be briefly stated : the four-branched median nervure, supposed to be peculiar to the swallow-tails, exists also in the skippers ; the osmateria are paralleled by similar organs in all other butterfly larvee, and tliese being exceptionally developed, as tentacles or caruncles, in several special groups of inwcts, have no structural significance ; the swallow-tails are most nearly allied to the PieriJs, but the lat- ter group possesses none of the characters on account of which high rank has been claimed for the swallow-tails ; on the other hand the swallow-tails are directly allied to the skippers, the lowest family of butterflies, by the form of the egg, the dorsal shield of the first thoracic segment in the larva, the character of the silken attachments of the chrysalis, and by various



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points in tlie structure of the imago, such as the antennas, the papillae of the tongue, the folding of the inner border of the hind wing, the perfect development of the forelegs and the presence of a fore-tibia1 epiphysis. The chrysalids of the brush-footed butterflies are also shown to have passed through the "succincti " stage by the persistence of a form of abdomen then of use, but, in
the b6 suspensi" stage, no
longer serving any purpose. Several features in other groups of butterflies, such as the loss of the cremaster in the Lycaenids, the procession of pupal characters in passing from the lower to the higher groups, and similar details concerning the atrophy of the forelegs and the structure of the tongue, are brought forward for the first time or in a new connection. Passing now to partial histories and miscellaneous notes upon habits, we have descriptions of the larvae and mines of various Tineidae by Mr. V. T. Chambers ; of the larvae of some Noctuid and Geometrid moths, five in number, by Mr. L. W. Goodell ; of two species of Deilephila by Mr. Wm. Saunders ; of the egg, larva and pupa of Smerinthus modestus by Mr. R. Bunker ; the larva and pupa of JSuchaetes collaris by Mr. G. H. Van Wagenen; the larva and pupa of Meganostoma eurydice and Heterocampa salicis, the former feeding on Amorpha, by Mr. H. Edwards ; the larva and larval habits of Megathymus yuecae by Mr. C. V. Riley; the larva of Exyra rolandiana by Mr. R. Thaxter, and of Thyreus nessus by Mr. W. V. Andrews. We have notes on the oviposition and cocoon-making of Herpyllus and Epeira by Mr.
J. H. Emerton, a notice of
finding six chelifers beneath the elytra of a single Alaus by Dr. J. Leidy, and notes by Dr. Anderson on the habits of the trap-door spider of South Carolina, and my own on those of the tube-constructing ground spider of Nantucket - a species of Lycosa. Dr. H. A. Hagen, by the aid of notes ives us
from Baron Osten Sacken and Mr. H. S. Treherne, g' an account of the habits of Termitina in Colorado, Nevada and Manitoba. In the former places they were found up to a height of two thousand one hundred metres. Mr. C. R. L'odge describes the habits of Rhomalea microptera in captivity, with notes on tlie eggs and young. Messrs. H. A. Brous and S. W.



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Williston give their experience in hunting Amblychila, show- ing that it has subterranean and crepuscular habits, and noticing briefly the eggs and larva. Mr. W. H. Dall gives us an entertaining account of the movements of '' educated " fleas, which he shows to be simply due to their struggles to escape when tied together, a ludicrous parody on education. Mr. C. V. Riley defends his theory of the pollination of Yucca by Pronuba, from the criticisms it has called forth, and Mr. H. Edwards gives some interesting notes on the larvae of Psychidae which construct curious nests of various vegetable fragments, within which they live and undergo their transformations. He mentions three new forms of these nests from California. Mr. Wm. Edwards describes a flight of butterflies, probably of Danaida pJexippus, near Natick, Mass.
Concerning the food of insects and insects as food, we have notes on the plants which nourish Hemileuca maia, by Messrs. R. Bunker and 0. S. W estcott, and Saturnia io, by Mr. L. W. Goodell, besides the scattered notices which usually accompany general lists. Mr. C. R. Dodge gives a curious account of the perforation of a mink ball, which had lodged in a tree, by tLe larva of a borer, and Dr. H. A. Hagen supplements the account by a long list of lead-boring insects. Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., notices the preference that white butterflies show for white flowers, and Mr. T. G. Gentry, in his Birds of Eastern Penn- sylvania, gives a long list of insects which serve each bird as food, showing on liis part remarkable industry, and demanding, on our side, a certain amount of credence. With regard to the seasons of insects, Mr. F. B. Caulfield publishes some facts to show that Meloe angusticollis is a spring, and M. arnericanui, an autumn species, which Mr. W. Brodie's observations do not confirm, if he has rightly determined his species. Mr. F. B. Caulfield believes that Vanessa J-album does not appear later than other Praefecti ; and I Lave attempted to illustrate the harmony of tints in nature by showing how closely, in New England, the colors of the prevailing butter- flies, at any one season, correspond to the hues of the land- scape.




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