Cambridge Entomological Club, 1874
PSYCHE

A Journal of Entomology

founded in 1874 by the Cambridge Entomological Club
Quick search

Print ISSN 0033-2615
January 2008: Psyche has a new publisher, Hindawi Publishing, and is accepting submissions

Article beginning on page 333.
Psyche 5:333-334, 1888.

Full text (searchable PDF)
Durable link: http://psyche.entclub.org/5/5-333.html


The following unprocessed text is extracted from the PDF file, and is likely to be both incomplete and full of errors. Please consult the PDF file for the complete article.

March-April 1890.1 PSYCHE. 333
NEW TRAP-DOOR NESTS OF SPIDERS.- In
two recent papers, Arachnides du Venezuela, (Ann. soc. ent. de France, 1889, v. 9) and Avicularidae du Nord de I'Afrique, (Actes soc. Linndenne de Bordeaux) E. Simon de- scribes and figures a number of new nests of mys-alidae. Among the Venezuela species, Pseudidio$s opifex makes a short tube with trap-door on branches of trees. The tube is attached to the bark by one side and covered with bits of bark and lichens.
Stothis astuta
makes a short tube with a trap-door at each end. sometimes the tube is among loose rub- bish on the surface of the ground and is then straight. In other places where the soil is more solid it burrows obliquely below the surface, carries the tube a short distance just under ground and turns it up again to the surface. Rkyttdicolus strzirtor makes a nest of three distinct chambers connected by
narrow openings both closed by trap-doors, the one between the first and second cham- bers opening inwards. The cocoon is flat and is hung across the outer chamber. Psal- istops melano$ygia makes a tubular burrow, lined partly with silk, and with a branch near the upper end like many other species, but with no trap-door, and conceals the mouth of the tube with leaves and rubbish. Rpi- fedesis ofif& makes a simple furrow on the surface of the ground under a stone or moss and covers it with silk.
Among the African species Lefto$elma
cavicola makes a branched tube without any trap-door. Dolichoscff$tus latastei carries its tube with trap-door ten centimeters above the surface of the ground making it stiffwith bits of dirt and leaves fastened with silk to the outside. Dolickosca'ptus vittatus was found in several cases to bore at the bottom of its burrow a short tube too small for the spider, filled with the remains of insects that it had eaten. Dolichoscajtus artz+ makes a very peculiar,complicated burrow. At the mouth it has the usual flat trap-door. A short distance below the surface the burrow is enlarged into a spherical cavity in which works a door of a. different kind. It consists of a lump of dirt covered with silk, shaped like half an egg with the edges rounded off and large enough to half fill the spherical cavity. When turned with its longest diameter vertical and its con- vex side against the wall of the cavity it leaves room for the spider to pass on the opposite -.
side from the upper to the lower part of the burrow. When turned with its longest diam- eter across the burrow it closes it completely. To con~plicate this arrangement still more, a flexible tube of silk,continuous with the lining of the lower part of the burrow and open at the top, is attached along the flat side of this door so that when the door is open the spider passes up or down through this tube, and when the door is closed the tube is flattened against the side of the burrow. 7. H. Emerton.
-
OTIORHYNCHUS SULCATUS INJURIOUS TO
PLANTS IX GREENHOUSES IN MASSACHU-
SETTS.-Mr. W. M. Corving of West Rox-
bury wrote me 5 March, 1889, that the Cycla- mens in the greenhouses of the Messrs,
Fisher Brothers of Montvale, Mass., were seriously injured by a beetle. The injuries were confined chiefly to the flowers but some- times the bulb was destroyed.
The leaves
being hard and leathery escape injury.
Mr.
Corving sent me a specimen which proved
to be the well known European weevil Otior. hynchus sulcatus, the existence of which in Massachusetts has been known for a very
long time. Dr. Horn gives as localities Mas- sachusetts, Canada, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; all of these are represented in the Leconte collection. The general collection of the Museum contains two specimens from Europe (Ziegler collection) and six speci- mens collected in Cambridge in 1872 by Boll. I was interested to know when and by whom the beetle was first recognized here. Scho- enherr (Cure., 1843, v. 7, p. 371) gives 0. apiciilahis Say Mss. as a synonym of 0. sul-



================================================================================

334 PSYCHE. [March-April 1890.
catus. Harris in his catalogue (second
edition 18351 has first mentioned Say's spe- cies and in his manuscript catalogue records receiving the same from "Doct. Gould, an- other from Dr. Smith." This entry is in- serted between specimens collected in May and June, 1831. Prof. Riley in his third Missouri report (1871 p. 11) states that the species infests the crown of strawberries but does not say where it was observed. Pro- vancher speaks of the species as L6trks com- mune." Lintner in his second report (1885 p. 51) mentions it as injurious to bulbs and house-plants. I do not find the species i-e- corded west of Pa. In the European litera- ture it is mentioned everywhere and the early stages are described by Bouch6, Westwood, Lucas and others.
H. A. Hagen.
NOTES ON COLIAS EURYTHEME AND C-
PHILODICE.-In the vicinity of Charleston, S. C., where most of my observations have been made, CoZias ez~rytheme is the charac- teristic type. I may say, in fact, that it is the only member of the genus that I have ever seen on the seaboard. It is as plentiful there as C. philodice usually is in its proper range, though not seen, as far as I know, in the countless hordes in which the latter is said to congregate at times. In Clarendon County, S. C., where I have collected, off and on, for a good many years, C. ewyfheme was not as abundant as on the coast, C. $hilodice not found at all, and C. caesonia taken occasion- ally. In Ashville, N. C., where C. philodice is very abundant, I have never seen C. ewy- theme; and C. caesonia but once.
Spartan-
burg County, S. C., is the highest locality in which I have yet found C. eurytheme.
I have never seen C. $hilodice at all in South Carolina until this autumn ; at which time I was enabled to do considerable col- lecting in Columbia, a locality where I had never collected before. Here I found C.
philodice and C. eurytheme occurring in equal and considerable abundance, and this spring I meet C. philodice and C. ariadne in about the same proportion.
I have noticed a de-
cided difference of manner between the two ; C. euryfheme being much swifter in flight, its stop at a flower less prolonged, and its whole manner more decided; and it is also much more wavy and therefore more difficult to catch than C. 'philodice. In this respect. my experience is, to use an equation, that C. philodice; C. ezwytheme :: C. eurytheme : C. caesonia.
Our normal spring form of e11yvtfteme is C. uriadne.
I have taken, this past January
(12th to 24th et seq.) a large series of C. ariadne, which are, on the average, identical with forms from Texas, and show no marked variation from a few that I have from Wis- consin. A pretty full series of western C. eurytheme in my collection, consisting of specimens from five states, from Wisconsin to California, present no marked difference from our autumn eurytheme; possibly in one or two cases, the western form may be a trifle more irridescent than our average; but I have one July $ taken in Charleston, that is fully as rich in color, as any that I possess from the west. I notice among these western forms some that appear to me to be unmis- takably C. keewaydzn: this form I have not taken here, though I have a few C. ariadne from Charleston that are very large and yel- low and seem to intergrade with C. keeway- din.
The autumn $8 of C. -philodice taken in
Columbia are much larger than northern
forms of the same in my collection from
Princeton, N. J. We have a spring form of C. pkilodtce, bearing the same relation as far as size is concerned, to the autumn C. å´philo dice, that C. adze bears to C. euryfheme. In the city of Charleston, I have taken the eggs'of C. eurytheme from white clover, as they were laid by the female.
The white $! $ of both C. ewytheme and
philodice I have taken here, in Columbia, in spring and autumn.
C. caesom'a, the only other of the genus found with us, is by no means abundant,
though not infrequent last autumn. I cap- tured six in Columbia, in October and No- vember, 1889. Elison A. Smyth, Jr.




================================================================================


Volume 5 table of contents