196 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
of Coleoptera are now known from this island which has an 
area of not more than six or seven acres. 
Mr. Barber exhibited specimens of the larvae and adults 
of two species of Phengodes and also some photographs of 
different portions of the insects for comparison, and presented 
the following note: 
NOTE ON PHENGODES IN THE VICINITY OF WASHINGTON. 
D. C. 
BY H. S. BARBER. 
The following observations on beetles of the lampyrid genus 
Phengodes are deemed worth while recording, although they 
are mainly in corroboration of those made by Prof. George 
F. Atkinson and published some years ago. 1 
During the past three years about a dozen larvae or larviform 
females of Phengodes have been found in this vicinity, but 
males of the genus have not been taken here before this year, 
when two species were captured at Plummers Island, Md. (about 
to miles up the Potomac River from this city). They were 
P. plumosa and P. laticollis. 
On June 17 of this year I found an adult female in the 
Zoological Park, about n o'clock on a bright moonlight night. 
Two nights later it was exposed in a jar with earth on Plummers 
Island and about quarter past nine o'clock a male (P. lati- 
collis} was found attempting to enter the jar. Copulation, 
lasting about two minutes, was observed a few minutes later, 
and the act might have been repeated had not the male been 
removed in the hope of luring another. The male was not 
luminous. 
On July i , the female was observed rolled up in the soil 
and within the coil of her body about 20 eggs had been laid. 
On the 6th the number of eggs had been brought up to 53 
or more. The female was then greatly shrunken and weak, 
but still alive and luminous. The eggs were not luminous. 
The female retained luminosity till about August 10, when 
the jar became rather dry, but a few young larvae were found 
to have hatched out a few days later. Owing to my absence 
during the next two weeks the jar dried out and all the young 
larvae died. 
1 Journ. Elisha Mitchell Scientific Soc., Vol. iv, Pt. ii, p. 92, 1887. 
