LITERATURE FOR 1913 ON THE BEHAVIOR OF 

 SPIDERS AND INSECTS OTHER THAN ANTS 



C. H. TURNER 



Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri 



TROPISMS 



1. Chemotropism. — Trogardh (104) discusses the role of chemo- 

 tropism in economic entomology, and Weiss (118a) dissertates 

 on the odor preferences of insects. 



2. Geotropism. — Weiss placed some hibernating individuals of 

 the lace bug (Corythuca ciliata Say) in a glass cage in a warm 

 room. As the temperature rose, some ascended vertical sticks 

 and others, in the open, climbed one over the other, until there 

 was a pillar several bugs high. As a rule, when the column was 

 six bugs high it would sway and topple. These bugs behaved, 

 the same in sunshine and in shade and flashes of bright light 

 did not alter their behavior. Individuals of three species of 

 lady-bug beetles (Adalia bipunctata, Coccinella 9-notata, and 

 Megilla juscilabris) were deprived of food for from one to five 

 minutes and then placed at the base of a fifteen-foot pole. Each 

 climbed the pole: the first species an average height of eight 

 feet; the second an average of one foot six inches in the sun 

 and of seven feet six inches in the shade; the third an average 

 of one foot four inches in the sunlight and of seven feet in the 

 shade. The investigator considers this behavior an exhibition 

 of negative geotropism. 



3. Phototropism. — Heinrich (56) and Reiff (89) have dis- 

 cussed the reactions of butterflies and moths to light, and 

 Holmes (61) has published a short note on the orientation of 

 flies of the genus Bombilius to light. 



Wodsedalek (124) has demonstrated that the phototropic 

 responses of the Dermestidae vary at different life-history 

 periods. Immediately after hatching the larva of Trogoderma 

 tarsale is negatively phototactic and, if placed near a window, 

 will move away from the light. This negative response persists 



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