Cambridge Entomological Club, 1874
PSYCHE

A Journal of Entomology

founded in 1874 by the Cambridge Entomological Club
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Article beginning on page 340.
Psyche 6:340, 1891.

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340 PsYcfiE. [October I@Z.
Food $laat. Black oak i@ercus
kelloggii Newberry).
Nadata oregoneasis is not well dis-
tinguished from A7. gibbosa Sm. &
Abb., especially in the larval state. It seems to be related to gibbosa much as
Papilio rutulus is related to P. furnus
among the butterflies. Its habitat is
very probably coextensive with that of
its food plant, which is said to be "on
the coast ranges and on the western
slope of the Sierra Nevada throughout
California and as far north as the mid-
dle of Oregon ; on mountain sides and
summits only, or in the elevated valleys, not on the plains or near the sea."* Mr. Edwards recorded it from Siskiyou and
Butte Counties and I found it in Mari-
posa County, and at Portland, Oregon
but I am not aware that any record of
its capture in the coast ranges has yet
been made.t
NOTES ON THE NESTING HABITS OF CERTAIN BEES. BY A. S. PACKARD, PROVIDENCE, R. I.
These notes were made in 1865 to 1867,
of mud thinly lined within with white silk, and were used in writing the chapters in and those of Osmia are a fourth larger.
'Our Common Insects" entitled "The Home The insect cuts a longitudinal ovate lid, of the Bees," and were also in part utilized in nearly as large as one side of the cell itself, my Guide to the Study of Insects, but the which is attached to the posterior end by a matter here offered for publication has been unpublished, and is perhaps worthy of
record.
OSMIA SIMILLIMA Smith. -A number of
cells of this species were found in a deserted oak-gall of Dfplole-pts confluentus, individ- uals of both sexes appearing in the house Dec. 14, 1865, while one appeared during the second week of the following April, and lived a week in the breeding box.
The earthen
cells. eleven in number, were arranged irreg- ularly so as to fit the concave vault of the gall, which was about two inches in diameter. The cells are rudely cylindrical, a third longer than broad, and quite different in ap- pearance from the cells of Odynerus, which are also built in these empty galls. The cells within are shining mahogany-colored, but externally are rough with the debris of the interior of the deserted gall. They differ from the cells of Odynerus i~ being parch- ment-like, while those of the latter are made hinge. Odynerus makes its exit by a hole at the end of its cell.
OSMIA PACIFICA Say. -Individuals of both sexes were found in the perfect state in cocoons and earthen cells beneath stones April 15. The cell is half an inch in length ; breadth .28 inch. It is oval cylindrical, a little contracted at the upper end just before the lid, forming an urn-shaped oblique lid, which is flattened and a little depressed at the middle. The cell is thin andcomposed of black fine earth, and not lined with silk within; the outer surface is not very rough. MEGACHILE CENTUNCULARIS. -The cells
or cocoons of what is probably this species are cylindrical, very obtuse at each end, the walls of tough, parchment-like consistency, * E. L. Greene, Ulus. of West Amer, oaks, page a, 1%.
f I have recently seen examples of the species in the collection of Prof. Rivers from Napri Co., Cal. and il has been taken at Seattle, Wash., by Johnson.



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October 1892.1 PSYCHE. 341
thick and solid, and covered by two or three layers of circular pieces of rose leaves. MEGACHILE SCAEVUS Say.- I find in Dr.
T. W. Harris MS. notes, in the library of the Boston Society of Natural History, the following notes on this species. "Nest
under a stone Sept, 11, 1829. Imago, June and July."
MEGACHILE n. sp? . - Six cocoons were
found in blackberry stems (probably received from Mr. James Angus) in tunnels just their size. They did not lie very near each other. They are quite tough and thick, and are
rounded at one end and squarish at the
other. Length .40; breadth -14 inch.
MEGACHILE BREVIS Say, - Its cells are
like those of M. centuncularfs, but the leaves of which they are made are more loosely
placed around the cocoon. The leaves are neither those of the rose or spiraea, and were not identified. This is a small species, with the fore tibiae simple, as are those of M. integer Say. The nest, preserved in the
Harris collection, is in the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History.
MEGACHILE INTEGER Say. - The nest, also
in the Harris collection, is scarcely distin- guishable from those of M. centuncula~is, though the pieces may be a little larger, and the cells a little more flattened.
Mr. T. D. A. Cockerel1 of Jamaica is en- gaged in an investigation upon the insects of Custer County, Colorado, with special refer- ence to the origin of the successive faunas found at different altitudes, based upon his collections while resident there. It can hardly fail to give results of considerable general in- terest.
Out of fifty-seven specimens of Opomala
brachyitera collected this season in New England by Mr. A. P Morse, seven (2 3,
5 9) have tegmina and wings which extend to the tip of the hind femora, the ancestral form thus appearing to an unexpected degree ; of twenty-etght specimens in the collection of Mr, S. H. Scudder only one (a 8) has
wings of this length.
The U. S. National museum has recently
published as a bulletin a pamphlet of about 150 pages, amply illustrated, containing ad- mirable '- Directions for collecting and pre- serving insects," by Dr. C. V. Riley; it is excellently planned and executed, with many sensible suggestions.
A successful visit was made last July by Messrs. S. H. and G. H Scudder to the
summits of the White Mount.ains to piocure the eggs of Oeneis semidea. More than fifty females were captured, and about half of them sent to Mi. W. H. Edwards in West
Virginia, the others placed over growing grass.
More than half of those sent to West
Virginia reached there alive and were there confined over growing plants, and from all many hundreds of eggs were obtained. Of
one lot of over one hundred eggs laid in Cambridge, July 14, every one that was fer- tile hatched on July 26. The period may of course be longer on the mountain. Mr. G. H.
Scudder found a caterpillar which had
just reached the last stage feeding at midday on a blade of Carex, and it has since fed in Cambridge quite as much by day as by night. The friends and admirers of the late Mr. Henry Wslter Bates are endeavoring' to raise a fund to be presented to his widow as a suitable memorial of their esteem. The first list embraced the names of nearly ninety persons, am1 å 377 has been subscribed.
Contributions may be sent to S. Wm. 5.1 1 ver, 3 York Gate, Regent's Park, N. W., London, England.
An admirable and interesting illustiated account of the life-history of Hy-poderma lineata, the ox-bot of the United States, is given by Dr. C. V. Riley in the June number of insect life; Mr. Riley also contributes to the same number a highly important descrip- tion and figure of the first larval stage of Bruchus fabae, showing that it has slender and rather long thoracic legs of a peculiar



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