Article beginning on page 259.
Psyche 6:259, 1891.

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April 189a.J PSYCHE. 259
emerge from the earth solely because the Hyphantria cocoons are placed therein,
though I have found the puparium
separate from the cocoon in the earth.
Mr. Harrison G. Dyar, to whom I
sent one of the Eucaterva cocoons from
which the moth had emerged, wrote me
as follows concerning two Tachinid
eggs which he found within it, and
which are doubtless those of the above
species :
"There were two eggs of Tachina upon the cast skin contained in the cocoon, and both had hatched but apparently had failed to enter the larva. Probably they are eggs of the species of Tachina you have bred from the cocoons. They are elliptic ovate in out- line, flat below and rounded above, smooth shining white. Under the microscope, they appear very faintly divided into minute hex- agonal or circular areas. Length 0.6 mm., width 0.3 mm.
"The larvae had hatched by breaking a
piece off of the pointed end. The eggs had been placed upon the body of the caterpillar, not on the head."
Melgenia websteri Twns., Can.
entom.. xxiii, 206.
This species was
recorded as bred from a chrysalis.
Professor Webster sent me a portion of
the chrysalis, and it has since been
determined, by Dr. Henry Skinner, as
belonging to Pyrameis cardui. Re-
garding the generic position of this
Tachinid, it does not belong in Mei-
genia. The best place to which I can,
with my present knowlege, relegate it,
is in the genus Prospherysa v. d. W.
Dr. Brauer, in a letter to me, has re-
ferred it with a query to Achaetoneura.
Phorocera (Melgetlia) promiscwa
Twns. should perhaps be referred to
the same genus as the preceding. It is
indicated by Brauer in Zitt. as belong-
ingeither to Achaetoneura or Proso-
paea. If these genera can be used, it
will be well to recognize them.
Tachina clisioca@ae Twns. is re-
ferred by Brauer in Ziti. to Eutachina.
This I do not approve of, as there is no necessity for the creation of the new
genus Eutachina to contain the forms
referred to Tachina sensu stricto.
I would like also here to make a note
of the fact that Dr. Brauer informs me
by letter, as also in a note of his in the Sitz~ngsbe~. k. k. z001.-bot. gesellsch. Wien, of May, 1891, that he first called attention to the relationship of the Oes- tridae with the Muscidae in 1858, in the Verh. zoo1.-bot. gesellsch. I wish,
therefore, to correct my statement in
the Proc. ent. soc. Washn. ii, go, that
this view was first advanced by Loew.
THE LARVA OF SARROTHRIPA REVEYANA.
BY HARRISON G. DYAR, YOSEMITE, CAL.
The larva of this species occurred season in August and I obtained them abundantly on poplar at Yosemite, Cal., at this time in 1889 and 1891. When
in July.
The moths emerged the same I first noticed the larvae living gee-



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PSYCHE.
riously under their silken web on the
fresh terminal leaves of new shoots, I
supposed them to be Tortricid larvae,
and came near neglecting to rear them.
A large proportion of the new shoots
of the poplar (Po/u/us balsamzj5e~~a)
in the valley were infested with these
larvae.
I have not seen any record of the
occurrence of this species in the United States, except that the name is given in Hy. Edwards's Catalogue of transforma-
tions of North American Lepidoptera
with three references to European
authors.
I have been enabled to deter-
mine these moths to belong to the Eu-
ropean species from some figures which
my sister, Mrs. S. Knopf, kindly made
for me at Paris, France.
I believe that there are five larval
stages, but I have not observed them in
sequence and I have not seen the egg.
Rgg. Not observed.
First larval stage.
Head rounded, partly
retracted under joint 2, furnished with a few hairs ; width 0.4 mm. Body apparently like that of the mature larva; a few hairs.
(Described from a dead discolored speci- men.)
Second stage.
Like the mature larva ex-
cept in size; pale yellowish green, smooth; hairs whitish, curling backward. Width of head 0.6 mm.
Third stage. Only the cast head-case was observed; width 0.9 mm.
Fourth stage. Width of cast head-case,
1.2 mm.
Ft+% stage. Head round, pale greenish,
not shiny; ocelli black, mouth white, jaws brown; a few hairs; width 1.8 mm. Body
cylindrical, folded between the segments, tapering slightly from the middle to the ex- tremities; feet normal. Hairs few, fine and long, white, growing from the skin, there being no warts nor tubercles perceptible even with a glass, but the single hairs are ar- ranged in the same manner as the warts of the Arctiidae; row 4 is just below the stig- matal line and the hairs each a little back of a spiracle; 5 anteriorly and 6 posteriorly on the segments in the subventral space, and 7 consists of four small hairs on the venter of the legless segments. Body velvety yel- lowish green, subtranslucent, the dorsal ves- sel darker; a very faint yellowish stigmata1 line; feet tipped with brown; spiracles mi- nute, ocherous. The larvae live gregari- ously or, more rarely, singly under a silken web spun on the upper side of a tender leaf some distance above the surface. They will not eat the old hard leaves.
Cocoon. Composed entirely of white
opaque silk and spun between two leavesor in some other place that will furnish the nec- essary support for the first vertical threads a- gainst which the cocoon is built. It recalls in shape the cocoon of Nola trinotata, but con- tains no bark and is larger and thicker. The base is flat, the sides nearly straight, and one end is pointed above, from which the top slightly tapers to the other end. The end be- low the point opens like a pair of vertical doors for the emergence of the moth.
Pit-pa. Cylindrical, thorax rounded, ab- domen only very slightly tapering, the last segments rounded ; cremaster none. Smooth, pale whitish with a brown tinge and a broad dark brown dorsal shade running the whole length.
Length, 10 mm. ; width, 3 mm.
Food -plants.
Poplar (Populus) and wil-
low (Salix).
Larvae from Mariposa Co., California.
-.
NOTE.-A study of California butterflies Scudder in the Overland monthly for April and especially their comparison with those to claim that the highest type of human civ- of Eastern America and Europe leads S. H. ilization is to arise on the Pacific coast.



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