Cambridge Entomological Club, 1874
PSYCHE

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Article beginning on page 391.
Psyche 6:391, 1891.

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February 1893.1 PS YCHE. 391
area enclosed between the transverse line and the radial ray is dark reddish-brown. In ad- dition to the two rays of the upper surface, there is a dark ray upon the lower side upon the second median. Expanse 9 55 mm.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 9.
Fig. I. Cocoon-bag of Oecura Goodti,
Holl. The dotted line indicates a portion removed for purposes of dissection.
Fig. 2. Cocoon-bag of Anafhe Moioneyf
Druce.
Fig. 3. Oecura Goodii, 3, sp. n.
Fig. 4. Oecura Goodii, 9, sp. n.
Fig. 5. Anafke clara, 8, sp. n.
Fig. 6. Anaphe subsordida, $ , sp. n.
Fig. 7. Anafhe moloneyi, 9, Druce.
Fig. 8. Anajlie fnf~acfa, 2, WIs.
ON THE ATTRACTION OF LIGHT FOR THE TWO SEXES OF COLEOPTERA.
BY HENRY FREDERICK WICKHAM, IOWA CITY, IOWA. Referring to the capture of moths,
Dr. A. S. Packard writes, in a foot-note on page 246 of his "Entomology for
Beginners," "It is a curious fact that in general the males alone are attracted to light; the same is probably true of
beetles, especially the June beetle."
As this statement does not agree very
well with my own experience in col-
lecting Coleoptera I have been led to
go over a portion of my material and
embody the results in the following
table. With the exception of the speci-
mens from Tucson, which were taken
at street gas-lamps, all were captured at electric light.
Fifteen sets of insects have been
examined. These are numbered in the
table and I have subjoined the locality
in which each was taken as I find that
a set from one locality will give a dif- ferent proportion of a certain sex than
that from another. With the imper-
'feet data at hand it is impossible for me to determine what relation the date of
capture may have to the proportion of
either sex (since it sometimes happens
that one sex appears somewhat earlier
than the other) and I leave this for
future studies. As a rule only a few
days were spent at any one collecting
point and the set of each species repre- sents the work of two or three consecu-
tive evenings, never of more than a
week.
The insects have been taken at ran-
do111 from several different families,
chiefly using genera, however, in which
the male secondary sexual characters
are sufficiently well developed t-> enable the sexes to be separated without too
much trouble or chance of error.
Of these sets, those marked I, 3, 9,
I 2 are from Tucson, Arizona ; 2, 4, 5,
10, 15, from Albuquerque, New Mex-
ico ; 13, 14, from Spokane Falls, Wash-
ington, all collected by myself. The
remainder are from Lincoln, Nebraska




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392 PSYCHE. [February 1893.
and were kindlygiven me by Professor
diurnal in habit are attracted a long
Shimek.
distance by light-as,
for example, a
number of Cicindelae. Of the genus
Cv 77 3 Cicindela I have taken lepida, punctu- g :y ${
z
g % 3 2 lata and praetextata in such situations 3 3 2 !5~ :z
as well as the two mentioned in the
p ~ g % - table. No rule can be formulated in 1. Telracha carolina.
2. Cicindela sperata.
35
3. Cicindela lemniscata.
50
4. Bledius armatus. 55
5. Lachnosterna longitarsis. g
6. Lachnosterna fusca. I jo
7. Lachnost. crassissima. 26
8. Lachnosterna hirticula. 20
9. Cyclocephala (mixed set). 45
10. Cycloccphalaimmaculata. 18
11. C clocephala " 100
12. chalePus obsoietus. 130
13. Krgates spiculatus. 49
14. Prionus californicus. 108
15. Macrobasis atrivittata. 25
In eight cases we find a preponder-
ance of males ; in six the females are
more numerous, while in one case an
equal number of each sex is found. In
no instance is the set composed entirely of males, though the reverse has
occurred once, and in a very large
series.
It is worthy of note that many species
which are usually considered strictly
this case as to the attraction exerted on each sex- sometimes the males are
more numerous, sometimes the females.
Several genera of Scarabaeidae, not
here tabulated, show a varying propor-
tion of females. Cheirowys c2unaI~
which appears in our Check-list under
three specific names under the genera
Aphonus and Orizabus, furnishes about
equal numbers of each sex. Polyphylla
is chiefly seen in the male sex and the
same is true, so far as my experience
goes, of Plecti-odes.
It will be seen, then, from the fore-
going notes, that captures of Coleoptera at light need by no means be confined
to males only and that it can hardly be
stated as a general rule that these alone are attracted.
LEPIDOPTEROLOGICAL NOTES. - It will
please our readers to hear that Mi-. W. H. Edwards has received a grant of $500 from the Bache Fund of the National academy of sciences to complete the publication of his researches into the life histories of American butterflies.
One of the most zealous collectors of Indian Lepidoptera has been Col. Knyvett, who for many years has been in charge of the police forces in the province of Bengal and has util- ized the native policemen in his entomologi- cal labors. His entire collection, numbering over 700 species of rhopalocera in splendid suites and nearly 2000 species of heterocera in equally fine suites, about 10,000 specimens, has been purchased at the suggestion of Dr. Holland by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. They
will be under Dr. Holland's care and ulti- mately be placed in the museum which Mr. Carnegie is building in Pittsburgh, Penn. The specimens have all been examined and named by the most eminent English special- ists, Elwes, Hampson, Warren, Myrick and Butler.
Blatchley records 108 species of Indiana butterflies in a catalogue published in the 17th report of the state geologist, 1892.
-
- -
*For the synonymy of this species see Mr. H. W. Bates in Biologia Centrali-Americana, Insecta, Cole- optera, Vol. 11, part 2, p. 321.




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