50 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



THE OCCURRENCE OF THE EARWIG-FLY, MEROPE 

 TUBER NEWMAN. 



(NEUROPTERA, PANORPID^E.) 

 By HERBERT S. BARBER. 



There is, perhaps, no more interesting species among North 

 American Neuropteroid insects than this singular Panorpid. Its 

 great rarity, together with the fact that its habits are entirely un 

 known, may make the present records interesting to some. It is 

 hoped that more data may be obtained the coming season. 



Newman's type of the species, a female, was found by Double- 

 day at Trenton Falls, N. Y., in 1837. Sixteen years later, 

 July 1 6, 1853, Dr. Asa Fitch captured a female, which had 

 been attracted by the light of his candle, at Salem, N. Y. This 

 specimen is preserved in the U. S. National Museum. Hagen, 

 in his " Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America," pub 

 lished in 1 86 1, gives two localities Berkeley Springs, Virginia * 

 (Osten Sackent), and Pennsylvania. On July 28, 1871, Dr. 

 Fitch found his second specimen, a male, " Running on papers 

 on office table, evening, having entered at the open door, prob 

 ably."! He published a very full account and description of the 

 species in his fourteenth report, but seems not to have known 

 of Hagen's paper. He captured his third and last specimen, a 

 female, on August 24, 1877, and says of it : " Same as preced 

 ing, and making short flights in the lamplight. "j| Fitch's sec 

 ond and third captures appear to be lost. 



On August 22, 1886, Mr. E. A. Schwarz found a male speci 

 men, as published in the columns of our Proceedings, f under 

 a stone in what is now the Zoological Park of this city. Late in 

 the summer of 1898 Mr. O. F. Cook found a female specimen 

 near Tvlt. Vernon, Ya., also under a stone, and a few years ago 

 Mr. Nathan Banks captured a female at light, at Falls Church, 

 Va. Hine, in his Review of the Panorpidae of America, north 

 of Mexico,** adds Orono, Me., ft to the habitat, but gives no 

 further data. 



* Now West Virginia. 



t Osten Sacken's specimen was collected on the wall of the hotel 

 veranda bv lamplight one evening in the summer of 1856. See " Record 

 of My Life Work in Entomology," by C. R. Osten Sacken, Cambridge, 

 Mass., October, 1903. 



J Fitch's note-book. 



i4th Rept. Ent. N. Y. State Agr. Soc., pp. 373-381, 1872. 



|| Fitch's note-book. 



j[Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., i, p. 55, 1888. 



** Bull. Ohio State Univ., Ser. v, No. 7, Feb., 1901. 



tf Mr. Samuel Henshaw writes me that this specimen was collected by 

 Prof. C. H. Fernald, 



