314 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



SOME INSECTS WHICH BRAVE THE DANGERS OF THE 

 PITCHER-PLANT. 



By H. G. HUBBARD. 



Since Prof. Riley published in Trans. Acad. Sci., St. Louis, 

 1874, iii, pp. 235-240, his account of the insects which he observed 

 in connection with the common pitcher-plant, Sarracenia vario- 

 laris, I believe few new observations upon this subject have 

 been made. In July, 1894, ^ ^ a< ^ tne opportunity of making a 

 brief study of the insects associated with the large trumpet- 

 shaped leaves of Sarracenia Jlava, a species of pitcher plant as 

 common in the low sandy savannas and on springy hillsides in 

 Georgia and Florida as S. variolaris is in our northern bogs 

 and marshes. At De Funiak Springs, in western Florida, I found 

 an unusually fine collection of these plants in the boggy meadows 

 and springy hillsides forming the valley of a small streamlet. I 

 first noticed that many of the pitchers, thousands of which rose 

 above the sod, standing erect to a height of over two feet, were 

 attacked and eroded, chiefly in the upper part, by caterpillars of 

 a most brilliant carmine red color. I afterwards bred from 

 these both species of Xcmthoptera mentioned by Prof. Riley 

 from Sarracenia variolaris, viz : X. semicrocea Gn. and X. 

 ridings ii Riley. The moth of X. ridingsii has upon the upper 

 wings transverse bars of fuscous, while X. semicrocea has the 

 fore wing half black and half orange-yellow. The latter is the 

 smaller and the more distinctly marked species. Its larva is 

 much the brighter in coloration and all the markings are more 

 sharply defined than in ridingsii. It is a most beautiful creature, 

 gayly decorated with carmine, white, and velvety black. The 

 moths of both species were entirely at their ease within the 

 pitchers and made themselves at home there, resting in copula 

 tion upon the spine-clad walls or flitting over the dangerous 

 surface as easily as upon ordinary leaves. Evidently the death 

 trap has no terrors for them. I noticed that the larva of both 

 species takes the precaution to empty the pitchers of their liquid 

 contents by cutting a small hole from the outside near the base. 

 This insures a dry interior w r hich becomes partly filled with the 

 excrementary pellets, and among these the pupa is usually formed. 

 The drowned insects ensnared by the plant include species of all 

 orders in fact, representatives of almost the entire fauna of these 

 swampy meadows, ants predominating, as Prof. Riley remarks ; 

 but, contrary to his experience in the case of Sarracenia vario- 

 laris, I find that 6*. Jiava captures not only the honey-bee but 

 even Bombus and Megachile, together with sand-wasps (Bem- 

 becidas), and other aculeate Hymenoptera of the largest size. I 



