Article beginning on page 251.
Psyche 7:251, 1894.

Full text (searchable PDF)
Durable link: http://psyche.entclub.org/7/7-251.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.

June 1893.1 PSTCEL?Zm 251
Description. Elongate oval, tapering
toward the base. Slightly bulging on the side away from the hair in one specimen, or in the others narrower and more sym-
metrical. About two and a half times as
long as wide. The empty shell hyaline
and beautzyuIly sculptured with hexagonal reticulations. The hexagons somewhat
variable in size and perfectness in different parts of the shell, but average ones about one- twentieth of the width of the shell. The surface apparently smooth, the angles of the reticulations not beset with points as in the eggs of the Short-nosed ox-louse. Attached to the hair by a cement mass
about one-third the length of the egg, as shown in the figure. The cement mass
varies in shape, the distance it extends along the hair and the remoteness of the attachment from the root of the hair. The sloping base of the egg is included more or less in the cement mass, and the egg stands somewhat obliquely outward from the hair. Below we give measurements of the three
eggs observed. The figure, drawn to scale by the writer, chows the egg enlarged 40 times.
Measurements : Specimen (a), length, .863 mm.; width, .38 mm; width of operculum,
.26< mm. ; from base of hair, s, rom. ; cement mass, .345 mm. ; hexagonal reticulations of shell, .02 mm.
Specimen (b), length, ,805 mm.; width,
,379 mm.; width of operculutn, .253 mm,; from base of hair, 5.71; mm.; cement mass, .288 mm.
Specimen (c), length, 230.5 mm. ; width, ,379 mm.; width of operculum, .265 mm.;
from base of hair, 10 mm.; cement mass,
,312 mm.
ON THE VALIDITY OF THE TACHINID GENUS CELATORIA. BY D. W, COQUILLETT, WASHINGTON, D. C.
On page 235 of the second volume of
Insect life, the writer erected the genus Celatoria for the reception of an inter- esting Californian species of Tachina
fly that preys upon the adults of the
destructive D'iabrofica soror, as many
as one-third of these beetles sometimes
falling a prey to the attacks of this
parasite. The validity of this genus
has been called in question by the well- known authors, Messrs. Brauer and
Bergenstamm, who cite it as a synonym
of the previously described genus
Besseria (Die zweiflugler des Kaiser-
lichen Museums zu Wien, vi, 154 and
189; also p. 220, where the species,
crawii Coq., is erroneously credited to
C. H. T. Townsend). That these two
genera are very distinct from each other may easily be seen by the following




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

252 PSYCHE. [June l%s.
comparisons, the characters of Besseria
the process on the second ventral seg-
being taken from the figures and ment is the female, to which sex the descriptions given by the authors above above authors assign it, although in the mentioned. For the sake of uniformity,
genus Celatoria this form undoubtedly
it will be assumed that the sex having represents the male :- Front of male destitute of orbital bristles, Face perpendicular, in profile strongly con- cave; epibtoma projecting.
Facial ridges bare.
Third joint of antennae less than twice as long as the second.
Genitalia of female nearly as broad as the abdomen, incapable of being concealed
within the latter.
From this it will be seen that not
only are these two genera not identical, but their differences are so great that it becomes a matter of much surprise that
the authors above mentioned, who have
Front of male hearing two pairs of orbital bristles.
Face retreating, in profile strongly convex; epistoma retreating.
Facial ridges bristly to or beyond the middle. Third joint of antennae at least four times as long as the second.
Genitalia horny, not broader than the tibia, capable of concealment in a groove on
the venter.
not hesitated to establish new gcnera
on very trivial characters, should have
arrived at the conclusion that these two forms are one and the same.
THE LARVA OF BUTALIS BASILARIS ZELL. : THE RELATIONS OF ITS SETAE.
BY HARRISON G. DYAR, NEW YORK CITY.
In Butalis basilaris Zeller (deter-
mined by Prof. C. H. Fernald) we have
a Tineid larva which lives an exposed
life. Its superficial resemblance to a
Pterophorid is extremely close and it
lives in the same situations. The
larvae were found eating into the
young leaves and buds at the ends of
the growing shoots of the blackberry in
June and again in August, at Keene
Valley, N. Y.
Larva. Cylindrical, the abdominal feet
slender, the circular planta with a ring of six crochets regularly distributed. No second- ary hairs; setae long, with flattened or winged-furcate ends, arising from cylindrical produced tubercles; i and ii approximate, their bases fused; iii lateral, iv and v united, vi subventral posteriorly, vii of three setae on the anterior side of the base of the foot; viii very small, next mid-ventral line. Color of the body shining green, clobely adapted to the color of the young leaves; setae and tubercles white, adding a mossy appearance to the larva and causing it to still further resemble the leaves. Head slightly testa- ceous; width .6 mm., length of larva 5 mm. When mature the larva spins a cocoon of a coarse open network of silk at the ground



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