BEHAVIOR OF SPIDERS AND OTHER INSECTS 403 



stimulus, no matter what the hue, followed one with a lesser 

 brightness content, the wasps usually became active; but when 

 it followed one of greater brightness content the wasps usually 

 became inactive." 'These responses were not tropisms, for the 

 flights weie pronouncedly random; there being no fixed relation 

 between the direction of the movement and the rays of light." 



By shifting an incandescent lamp from one end to the other 

 of a glass dish and noting the responses of the scale Lecanium 

 quercifex Fitch, Gee (32) thinks he has demonstrated that this 

 scale is negatively phototactic. 



According to C. F. Riley (79), dragon-fly nymphs are nega- 

 tively phototropic to strong light. 



During the year two papers, one by Hunter (43) and another 

 by Hasebrock (39), have appeared which discuss the effect of the 

 Roentgen rays upon the development of insects. The former 

 experimented upon ticks, the latter upon butterflies. Hunter is 

 convinced that the rays do not produce sterility. 



3. Geotropism. Gee (32) arranged some thin sheets of cork in 

 a vertical position and placed some scale insects, Lecanium 

 quercifex Fitch, upon them. Invariably the insects crawled up- 

 wards, displaying, so he claims, positive geotaxis. 



4. Chemotropism. Gee (32) tested the chemical responses of 

 the scale insect Lecanium quercifex Fitch by placing, in the 

 midst of a crowd of the scales, a drop of one of the following 

 liquids: hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, ninety per cent, alcohol. 

 In each case a marked negative reaction was produced. 



SENSATIONS 



Wodsedalek (no) is convinced that the nymphs of Hepta- 

 genia inter punctata Say cannot see small objects. 



John Lovell (53) has published the results of some field work 

 conducted to test Plateau's statement that "All flowers might 

 be as green as their leaves without their pollination being com- 

 promised." Of the ninety-one green, greenish, brown, or brown- 

 ish entomophilous flowers enumerated by Plateau only thirty 

 per cent, were visited by bees, and some of these were conspic- 

 uous flowers. According to Lovell, in North America east of 

 the ro2nd meridian and north of North Carolina and Tennessee 

 there are r2 44 green or dull-colored flowers; of which ro2r are 

 anemophilous or hydrophilous, while only 223 are entomophilous 



