Article beginning on page 435.
Psyche 6:435-437, 1891.

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April 1S93.J PSYCHE.
SOME NOTES ON THE EAR1
CHRYSALIS, OF A FEW
BY SAMUEL
The subjoined descriptions are wholly
from notes taken twenty or thirty years
ago, and complement in part the larval
descriptions given in B. P. Mann's
paper in the second volume of Psyche.
MACROSILA CAROLINA.
Egg.
Round, very light green, and per-
fectly smooth so far as can be seen with an ordinary lens. They are laid singly, and rarely more than one is found upon the same plant.
Catey$illar. (See Psyche, v. 2, p. 73-75, for description of the larva, drawn up at the same time.)
Chrysalis. Dark reddish brown with a slight dark olivaceous tint on the wings, the edges of the segments darker than the middle;
spiracles and tongue black. The body is
deeply hollowed at the metathorax on either side of the centre, somewhat constricted at the prothorax, and has a central depressed line and a pit on either side of it upon the front of the fifth and sixth abdominal seg- ments. Metathorax and hind wings not very conspicuous, the former with a transverse backward directed ridge. The tongue is
free except at its bulbous tip, shorter than in M. pinquemaculata, and slightly incurved on its downward trend; its extreme tip is placed at one-third the distance from the head to the tip of the body and halfway
between the front of the head and the tip of the wings, while in M. qu.inquenzac~tlata it is at half that distance. The hind legs reach the tip or nearly the tip of the wings which extend over four abdominal segments.
Before the spiracles on the 5th-7th abdo:~ i- nal segments there is a slit five or bix times .Y STAGES, ESPECIALLY THE
AMERICAN SPHINGIDAE.
H. SCUDDER.
as long as the spiracles, the posterior edge raised and lipped, and the top ridged above, the whole being black, and undoubtedly
serving for the movement of the pupa in
reaching again the surface of the ground; precisely the same thing occurs in other species of Macrosila. The head, thorax, and appendages are quite smooth, being only
faintly wrinkled, except the tongue which is roughly wrinkled; the abdominal segments are profusely punctate anteriorly, punctate or rather pitted and wrinkled in the centre and, at least on the 4th-7th segments, very minutely and delicately punctate posteriorly : the last two segments are very deeply erose; the cremaster obtusely -conical, tranversely compressed, having two short points with their inner edges diverging, but their outer edges nearly parallel. Length 50 mm. ;
breadth 14 mm.
Some caterpillars which went under
ground about August 27 had not
changed on September 5, but changed
within eight days thereafter. They
seldom bury themselves more than
three or four inches, and make an nn-
derground cavern with sides of packed
earth.
SPHINX C1NEKEA.
Chrysalis. Mahogany brown, edges o
segments slightly darker. Body a little hol- lowed on either side of the metathorax and slightly constricted at the prothorax. Meta- thoracic wings visible down to the spiracle of third abdominal segment. Tongue de-
tached, heavily wrinkled, carried along the front nearly parallel to the breast, the tip not



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436 3's2'-cHE. [April 1893.
bulbous and placed slightly more than a
fourth way down the length of the body ; the same structure before the spiracles as in Macrosila. Head, thorax, and appendages
apparently smooth but faintly wrinkled ; ab- dominal segments wrinkled and punctate
evenly and not heavily, their posterior edges on 4th-6th abdominal segments being mi-
nutely punctate. Cremaster large, conical, scarcely flattened and with two very minute points upon it.
Length 46.1; mm.; breadth
13 mm.
Went under ground September 19.
DOLBA HYLAEUS.
Larval habits, etc.
I placed a full
grown larva found on Cape Cod early
in September under a glass over a plant
of sweet fern. The earth was clean,
and lie soon disappeared; but before
doing so he bit off most of the leaves
at their base, green and dried alike, and scattered them indiscriminately on the
ground below, so that the earth was no
longer to be seen, and until the leaves
were removed I could not tell whether
lie was merely hidden beneath them or
had gone under ground. No opnino;
in the heap of leaves was discoverable.
He had buried himself in the earth to
the depth of about an inch in an oblique position, head uppermost.
The faeces of this caterpillar are as-
tonishingly large, forming an irregular
cylindrical mass often I 2-14 mm. long
and 5
mm. broad, of a pitchy black
color, and looking like furnace slag,
and bearing no such definite markings
as are seen in Macrosila.
Parasites. While takingnotes of
the larvae, I was interrupted for a
couple of hours, and was very much
surprised on my return to find that one
I had been describing just before was
now covered with brown worms; no
less than eight of them had fastened
themselves by threads to the sides of
their victim, some on the fifth and some on the eighth and ninth abdominal seg-
ments.
They were of a very light brown color,
with a slight greenish tinge, having a dorsal row and on either side of it two other rows of small rounded elevations, one upon the anterior edge of each segment in each row ; there was also a dark dorsal streak, and here and there dark reddish brown spots, espec- ially upon the dorsal surface and the last three or four segments. The round thoracic spiracles were dark brown. The skin was
glistening and very evenly and microscopi- cally reticulate. The head had a faint green- ish tinge, and upon each side were two black bent lines like a figure 5 upon its side, while the opposite extremity seems to have a little thicker integument than the rest of the body. Length 7 mm.; breadth 2 mm.
These creatures had wormed their
way directly through the body wall of
the caterpillar, leaving little brown pits in various parts of the body to mark
their exit; but there seemed to be no
wound as there certainly was no loss
of any fluid; why is there none, and
why do all the worms come out to-
gether? The caterpillar, on the undei-
side of a leaf, remained motionless,
looking very slender and flabby, and
acting in a very dumpish manner.
As for the worms, they immediately
began spinning their cocoons where
they were, and when one was torn vio-




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April 1Sg3.j
PSYCHE,
lently away, the maker at once began a
new cocoon, constructing one-half at a
time, namely the half opposed to its
own ventral surface, and when this was
completed, it turned about and made
the other half. When all were made,
the cocoons were seen to lie in clusters, some horizontal but most perpendicular
to the back of the caterpillar; they
were made of a very fine glistening
silk, and when completed were about
4.8 mm. long by half as broad.
It
took one of them a little more than half an hour to completely envelope itself
with silk, though much longer to corn-
plete the cocoon. These when fin-
ished much resemble the buds of
Comptonia, being of a light chocolate
brown color, roughly ribbed longitudi-
nally about a
dozen times, the ends
smooth; they are loosely attached to
the caterpillar.
In escaping from their
cocoon, the enclosed Hymenopteron
bites off the top of the cocoon in an
irregular manner.
All that I had es-
caped me, and some came out at a time
when others of the same lot still re-
mained as larvae inside their cocoons.
The caterpillars may be found in
nearly every stage throughout the
month of August in eastern Massachu-
setts.
Chrysalis. Uniform shining mahogany
in color, with the wings lacking polish. The whole of the thorax and appendages are minutely wrinkled and all the abdominal
segments are rather minutely punctured and also wrinkled; the wings cover the fourth abdominal segment; the tongue case is very short; the cremaster is long, slender, coni- cal, straight, pointed, very rough at the base, smooth toward the tip. Length 38
mm.; breadth 10 mm. ; length of tongue
4.25 mm.
HYLOICUS PLEBEIUS.
Chrysalis.
Black, the posterior margin of
the 4th-6th abdominal segments light brown and minutely striate transversely. Body
shaped much as in Sfihi~x citzerea, with the same structure before the spiracles but less prominent; the shoulders prominent. Tongue short, free, regularly curved, rather thickened at the tip and one-third the length of the distance from the tip of the head to the tip of the wings, Metathoracic wings reaching the spiracles of the third abdotni- nal segment. Antennae with a raised point in the centre of each joint. First joint of second pair of legs prominent. Head, tho- rax, and appendages wrinkled; abdominal
segments coarsely wrinkled and deeply
punctate. Cremaster like that of Sphinx
cinerea, excepting that the tip is armed with a bifid prong which is down-curved. Length 44 mm. ; breadth 10.5 mm.
One larva went into the ground on
September 19, afterwards worked, him-
self halfway and finally wholly out,
and changed upon the surface Septem-
ber 25.




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