Article beginning on page 159.
Psyche 4:159, 1883.

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April 1w.1 PSYciYlY. 159
for its accomplishment. And if so but beg you to remember that if not undertaken and carried out, it should be felicitous of speech I am constant of a work which could be pointed at with heart, and shall ever wish you prosper- pride.
I would fain see this club the
ity iftid good fellowship in your future. author of it. R RespectfuHy ,
I would gladly have contributed <o
B: Pickm-an Mann.
your meeting a more worthy address,
SEXUAL ATTRACTION IN PKION'US.
Late in the summer of 1883 my atten-
tion was drawn to the sudden itppear-
ance of a large number of holes in the
garden, which, upon closer observatioii, proved to be the exits
of numerous
beetles of the genus Prionus.
Having
heard that the attraction of the male by the female was not common aUmone co-
leoptera, and finding no notice of such
attraction in the above-mentioned cole-
optera, I captured a large female which
was found in the grass with oviposi-
tor distended and greatly protruded.
Scarcely had the female been secured
before a male Prionus appeared ; he
ran and flew, by alternation, meanwhile
rapidly palpitating his antennae, about
and around the tent, inside of which the femilie had been confined ; finally, dis- covering the entrance to the tent, he fiew in and lit directly on the screen under
which the female had been put. After-
the appearance of the first male another was seen to approach the tent. He
went through a similar performance to
that of the fir~trone, fmaUy alighting on the cage. In this manner a great many
male specimens of Prionus were taken
ill the course of an afternoon. On ac-
count of the presence of so many males
BY ANNA KATHERINA DIMMOCK, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. a number of females made their appear-
ance, showing an attraction of the
female to the male like that above-noted of males attracted by femaies. Instances similar to those just described, that is, of male insects attracted by females of
the same species, have been frequently
recorded in lepkloptera, especially
among the hombycidae; but among the
coleoptera such cases are, I think,, more rarely met with, the only instance to my knowledge being the one originally
mentioned by Prof. F. H. Snow,* and
quoted by Mr. J. A. Lii~tner.~ Prof.
Snow found males of PoJyphyZZa vario-
losa vigoro~isly scratching the ground
above places where females were about
to emerge, presumably guided to these
places, as Mr. Lintner suggests, by the
sense of smell, rather than, as Prof,
Snow supposed, by that of hearing.
The most remarkable part of the sex-
ual attraction manifested by Prionus is
that of the females being attracted by the males, a kind of attraction concen~ing
which I have found no notice whatever.
a Mar. 1884.
* Trans. Kilns. acad. sci,, 1874, p. 27-13. Q Lintner, 1st ana. rep:. inaccts N. Y., iSSi [I%], p. 71.



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