80 



As you study larvse, you will perhaps explain to me the 

 strange attack of some pupivorous insect upon a worm which is 

 now under my eye. About ten days ago, some stalks of the 

 tomato were brought to me with two larvae of a Sphinx, new 

 to me, feeding on the leaves ; one of them covered with little 

 black spots indicating the wounds made by some Ichneumon. 

 But what I cannot comprehend is that from each spot there 

 issues a thread, from which hangs a little cocoon of beautiful 

 silk, like that of many insects of that great family ; there are 

 perhaps forty on this larva, which has ceased to eat, but 

 continues alive, though shrinking every day in a state of im- 

 mobility. The other, after feeding two or three days, died, 

 apparently owing to the cold weather which we have had. Is 

 it not possible that this larva has been attacked by two different 

 enemies of the same family ? My 119 (Hym.) makes little 

 vellow cocoons, which are aggregated in one bundle, but this 

 makes them white and singly, and what use there is in their 

 dangling about like bells on the back of the larva, I do not 

 know. 



I send you a rough sketch of au insect which I found in 

 March under the bark of a dead hickory, and also of a pine. 



It is tetramerous, and has no joint 

 bifid, but the first two joints of the 

 manus are somewhat dilated. The 

 palpi are filiform. This may be the 

 $ . I have another insect which may 

 be the ? , and the antennae of which 

 are thus : ^^^^ The insect is bright 

 rufous, polished, with the disk of the 



Fig. 13. 



thorax and two bands on the elytra 



black. It is related to Lanyuria, but, according to Latreille, 

 does not belong to that family. What do you think it is ? 



Among your Tenebrionites there are three which I do not 

 possess ; your Upis ruyosus and anthracinus, and your Tenebrio 

 punctulatus. Upis Icevigatus is the one about which I inquired 



