270 INEZ WHIPPLE WILDER. 



this with her head very near the hatching eggs. Little by little 

 the newly hatched larvae would stray from the nest, and would 

 be seen, often in groups of two or three, disappearing into deeper 

 and moister crevices in the loose soil. Often one or more would 

 be seen in contact with the mother in her burrow. During the 

 last two days of the hatching period, the mother was still deeper 

 in her burrow, and although she may have returned to her nest 

 unobserved, she never was found there. The larvae, also, were 

 vanishing, so that by the time the last of them hatched, only 

 eight were visible in the nest. 



Later, on October I, search was made to learn what had 

 become of the larvae. Several were found in the loose mass of 

 decaying leaves, in burrows which had been made by the mother, 

 or in natural crevices in the loose soil. These were in groups of 

 from two to four with the bodies in close contact. None were 

 in the water in the glass dish; but upon lifting this, two were 

 found in a little pool beneath it, a position which they had evi- 

 dently reached by going down from the nest into the deeper and 

 wetter layers of the loose debris until they reached the wet 

 surface of the more solid layer at the bottom. In another little 

 pool two others were found. These larvae, like those in the loose 

 soil above, were very active when disturbed. They placed 

 themselves, as do the aquatic larvae in their natural habitat, at 

 the edge of the water with the head almost out and the back 

 hardly covered. Eleven were found in all in different parts of 

 the terrarium at this time. The others had gone down too far 

 in the loose soil to be located without a more complete overturning 

 of the terrarium than was deemed advisable. Five of the speci- 

 mens were taken and preserved for later study (stages B and C). 

 There is no means of knowing the exact date of hatching of each 

 of these specimens, which may have been anywhere from one to 

 five days old; it is very probable, however, that two of them, 

 which were taken from the water (stage C) and which were 

 somewhat larger than the others, were hatched earlier, especially 

 as the others (stage B} were taken from near the nest. 



During the next few days the terrarium was examined from 

 time to time to locate the remaining larvae and to discover any 

 change in their activities. They never at any time showed the 



