Article beginning on page 364.
Psyche 3:364-366, 1880.

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364 PS YCHE.
year (1881) Mr. Brabandt reared the lar- vae of Stauropus fup' (called the crab-
caterpillar on account of its shape) which larvae, as is well-known, always quarrel with each other and are fond of biting
off each other's front-legs. Under such
circumstances Mr. Brabandt obtained a
larva which had lost one of its long fore- legs in a contest, but this appeared to dis- turb the insect little ; and it continued feeding unconcernedly and pupated ; and, on 5 June of this year, the moth emerged. The moth showed only the single defect
of not possessing the leg corresponding to the one which the larva had lost.
The following may serve as a contribu-
tion to the subject of the fertility of lepid- optera. Mr. Brabandt obtained from a
chrysalis, this spring, a female Lasiovampa quercifolva. As it was crippled he decided to set it out of doors in order perchance to attract a male, or in other words to secure a fertilization. Luck favored him ; the
next morning he found the female, only a few steps distant, in copulation with a male. The latter, in fine condition, was spread, but the female was imprisoned for the pur- pose of obtaining eggs. Behold ! she did her duty in the most thorough way, for
during the first night she laid no less than 510 eggs, and during the second night 70 more, - a total of 580 eggs, a fecundity on the part of a lepidopteron which is
remarkable, and very rarely recorded. Not a single egg was abortive, and each one
hatched its young larva.
Leipzig, 10 Aug. 1882.
ON A LARVA BORING THE LEAF-STALKS OF THE BUCKEYE (AESCULUS GLABRA) IN OHIO.
BY EDWARD WALLER CLAYPOLE, MEW BLOOMFIELD, PERKY CO., PA. Several years ago, soon after going to
reside at Yellow Springs, Ohio, I noticed, in the early part of May, that many of the leaves of the Ohio buckeye, Ae~culus $a- bra, drooped and withered very soon after they had unfolded from the bud. For two
or three years these drooping leaves caught my attention. On gathering them 1 uni-
formly found a small hole in the leaf-stalk, from which a tunnel, son~etiiaes twelve
millimetres in length, ran along the stalk. Above this hole the leaf was dying, below it the stalk was still alive. In some few in- stances I found in the tunnel a small yellow- mischief. Wherever the hole in the stalk was closed with droppings
the caterpillar
was present, but whenever the hole was
open the caterpillar was gone, leading to the inference that it had escaped through the opening.
After having made these preliminary
notes I attempted, in May 1878, to trace out the life-history of this insect, but,
being
very much pressed, with work, the experi- ment was a failure. The leaves were
overlooked for a few days of warm weather, became mouldy, and the caterpillars died. In 1879 I made a second attempt
with
ish caterpillar, evidently the author of the rather better success, but still without result



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PS YCHE. 365
of moment.
The main difficulty lay in the
were still feeding. but there were many
fact that the early stage, "during which dead ones.
the insect conkl be found in the leaf-stalk, On 25 May I found the first chrysalis
was of very ahort duration. and if, in the ' among the I~iives. It was light red iu
pressure of other occupations, I furgot to color, with eight rings on the abdomen.
note the iiufolding of the buckeye leaves, The rolled-up leaf was liued inside with or had not time to walk to the place where silk.
These. facts show nothing in any
they grew, the chance for that year was
way peculiar, and the same description
gone.
'Die bnckcye untblds very ~ d -
would apply to thousands of other clirys- denly and very quickly in the spring ; ftiida. consequently there are but a few days
A caterpillar, examined on 13 May 1881,
during which the caterpillar can he found. was one centimetre long, semi-transparent, However, I have succeeded in obtaining yellowish in color with a yellow head, and some every year since,, and in the two this appearance was retained, except that ' years 1880 and 1881 I roared a few
to the caterpillar became a little darker, until maturity.
it went into the pupal state about 20 May. In the early part of May, usually about
It was difficult to see what the caterpiliara the second or third', I found the drooping lived upon, as the fresh leitves that I put leaves of the buckeye in great numbers.
with them were not attacked. I have
1 gathered, 8 May, a quantity of the leaves, noted tins point for several years and have and, among them, a single specimen in come to the conclusion that the food of the which the caterpillar was in the maiu stem larva is the dead, dry leaf in which it is of the young shoot and not in the leaf-stalk rolled up. I have looked carefully an the -the only instance of the kind that I have trees and can find no eaten or nibl~lctl leaves met with. Taking -the specimens, home I near those containing the caterpillars!, so, plrtced them under a bell-glass in order to apparently, its habit ia the same, in this determine Hie first point in doubt, the respect, both in captivity and in its native destination of the caterpillars after leaving habitat. the letif-stalk! Two days afterwards, on On 9 June, fifteen days after entering
10 May, I found that the leaf-stalks wore the pupal state, the first moth emerged. all empty and the caterpillars hidden in the It was small, with a peculiar hopping
faded leaf at the top of the stem in which tiiglit, the fore wing mottled Mack and
they had previousiy burrowed.
On 15 white, and the hind wiug more unifortn in May, five days later, the caterpillars were color, dusky, and slightly spotted with black still in the dead leaves, and I went to the near the tip.
trees to try and find some more specimens, It appears as if the second stage in the but was unsuccefisfut.
However, on 21
life of this insect is that ia which it most May, I found a, few rolled-up leaves con- frequently falls a prey to iia foes. During taining caterpillars, brought them home
its earliest existence it is sheltered in the and placed them with the others,
tunnel it has bored in the stalk, and there On 23'May the sut'viving caterpillars
seems no cause hut the want of room to




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:w> PSYCHE.
prevent its remaining there and burrowing down the whole length of the stem. But
these quarters soon become too small for it, it leaves the tunnel by the hole at which it entered and betakes it~elf~to the dead and curled leaf. Here it is easily found by
other insects, and, from the difficulty of obtaining speciincn~ in tins stage, I infer that a very large nunibel- are destroyed by their enemies.
In exaininingtthe clirysiifids which I had obtained, I noticed that two or three were much larger than the rest. and I suspected that, ill collecting nibbled leaves from the buckeye, I had introduced the larvae of
some different species. This suspicion was chaugecl to certainty when the moths
emerged. Beside the genuine imago of the l~ckeye stem-borer, with which, by tins
time, I was quite familiar, I had two or three specimens of doub!e its size, with cinnamon-colored wings having the costal edge iu the form of a double curve. Not
knowing the name of cither species, I
planed them for future exmiination. Most entomologiata know the tediousand hopeless nature of the search through scattered pub- lications for the figure or description of some unknown insect, but, casualty lookitig over the report of the Entomological Soci- ety of Ontario for 1873, I found the larger of thetwo species figurcdand described by Mr. Saunders in nil article on i1it.ect.s inpi- rious to tlie raspberry (Ritbcs), and found that it was the banded ~'tispberry leaf-roller, Loxotacnia ('wrongly written Losotaenia) rmaveana, Harris. It follows, therefore, that in Ohio this insect lives on the lmckeyc as well as on the raspberry.
Though I have given the life-history of
this insect so far as I ]lava been able tfi trace it, yet other parts still remain to be worked out. I have not hen able to deter- mine where and when the egg is laid,
whether in early spring before the buds
open, or later, after tlie buds for the next year Lave ireen formed. In the former
ease tlie moth must be very long-hod,
lasting through the smuttier and then liiber- ~ating until spring, or the species must be double-brooded in this district. In the
latter case the eggs must remain on or in the bud all winter until it unfolds in spring, which seems unlikely. Moreover, if the
egg is laid in the bud, the young caterpil- lar must find its own way to the stalk of the leaf. On the whole it seems more
probable that the eggs are laid in spring and upon the stem of the leaf into which the larva can at once bore.
Specimens of the perfect insect were seat to Dr. C. V. Riley and were referred by
him to Prof. C. 11. Fenlaid. Though the
specimens were somewhat rubbed and the
peculiar markings consequently faint, both these entomologists inclined to refer them to fioteotcras acsculai~u~ii. a new genus and species described by Dr. Riley in 1881: though at first there was a suspicion
that the insect was Scrich inst~tana,~
Clem., the larval state of which was not then fully known. Specimens, however,
raised during the present season from far- vae obtained in Ohioa liav-e thrown doubt on this identification, but no specimen has 1 See Trims, Acad. Sriwicc St. Louis, v. 4. 2 See Pi'oc. Anier. Assoc. Advanc. Sci., 1881. 3 It is perhaps worthy of notice that, among these few specimens (in 1882), a aiiigle Imota- nia rosaceana, Harris, made itsappearance Also that although the buckiiy is commonly planter1 at 111 present resilience, in Perr,v county,Penn., yet Ihave never sew ft sip of the presence of this insert upon it.




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PSYCHE. A 367
been obtained sufficiently perfect to decide three days aud lives in a rolled-up led. the question. Dr. Riley, however, informs 5. I-', aetswlanum bores the stem to a me that the study of a specimen bred, in depth of from 13 to 50 rom. The insect
1873, from the blossom of the buckeye,
here alluded to seldom or never exceeds
which spccimen he finds specifically ideati- 13 mm. iu its boring.
cal with mine, renders it certain that the I may add here a few words from a re-
insect is not Protooteras aescu1anut)a.
cent letter from Dr. Eilcy. He writes :
Dr. Riby lias very kindly allowed mcto
" You are safe in changing tlic detcrmi- see Ins notes on, and figures of P. ~esm- nation of your species, for it certainly is fanurn. ahow several points in not Sericoris ~stmtana, Clem. You are safe in saying the species is close to P. am- that 'pecies
differs the 'pe-
miha ^ nevertheless different, not only
ciea which I reared.- These points are as in structure and in some of the details
follows:- , of its markings but more particularly in 1.
The larva here described bores the
having shorter and more acuminatc front- l,,af-stalk of, the backeye and only once wins.
But it ia impossible to ciitirarterize
it either generically or specifically until you have I found a specimen in the terminal
absolutely perfect specimens.fl
twig.
P. aesculit~iwn bores the termid
in conclusion I must express my indebt.
twigas well as the leaf-stalk.
edness to Prof. Feinald and Dr. Riley for '* aescu'antl'n bores ''le
the hublg thy have taken and the liclp
twigsofma~'e(*cerd~aV). Ihve f i y ~ ~ i V e l l ~ 1tis~niyig~~t,~ never seen a specimen of the insect here des- as ww i mpe, -feet state cribed On a map1e 'Or have I seen a
of
paper, h t t11c CIWM conccruing
twig or leaf' showing-indimtioiis of its pres- idcntitv of the insect did not arise uniil enec.
the greater part of the paper was in type. 3. P- aesculanum forms a This doubt csm~~ot be removed nutil the ing Or ~~~~~~g~~~~ the stem' The brood for 1883 is obbiued. In the lnean- here alluded to never form a. gall.
while Prof. Fernald has referred the insect, '*
P. aescu'anum lives in the gal1 'p-
provisionally, to the gems Stegmwptycha, parenfly
its whole larval Stephens (1834). under the name #. day- stage. The insect here described, however, polan'nei+ quits the leaf-stalk at the end of two or NOTES ON SPHINGIDAE.
BY LAFAYETTE WASHINGTOS GOODELL, AMHERST, MASS. Deileph-iln llneata is the most common
November-
I have seen the half-grown
of alt the sphingidae here, I have never larvae crawling about on the ground as found the larvae on anything but purslaae, late as 10 Nov., in search of their food- Portulaca oleracea, one of the worst of our plant which had been destroyed by early
weeds, and on the cultivated species, P. frosts. It is not uncommon to see the grmdiff,ora ; and on these they are found, moths on wing in midday, and often in the in all stages of growth, from June to full sm~iiine. The moths are particularly



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