OF WASHINGTON. 315 



was therefore the more surprised to discover that a large Sphecid 

 wasp, which Mr. Ashmead has kindly determined as Isodontia 

 (Sp/iex) philadelphica St. Farg., utilizes the pitchers, in their 

 most active and formidable condition, as a resting-place for the 

 rearing of its young. Hundreds of the pitchers had been thus 

 appropriated, but at the time, July 4th, I found only the capsules 

 from which the wasps had emerged, and secured a single pupa 

 only, far advanced towards maturity. 



The mother wasp stuffs the pitcher more or less compactly 

 with blades of grass and the fibrous threads of plants, which 

 float above the stygean lake in the bottom of the cup and safely 

 bridge its dangers. I suspect that the food which is supplied to 

 the larva of this wasp consists principally of the caterpillars of 

 the Sarracenia moths (Xanthoptera}, but I did not satisfactorily 

 ascertain the fact, as I only found the spun pupa cases resting 

 upright in the midst of a loose packing of grass. 



Notwithstanding that many species of spiders are found drowned 

 within the pitchers, there is nevertheless at least one species of 

 Lycosa that has thoroughly mastered the difficulties of the 

 situation, and habitually spreads its web within the tubes, not 

 only taking toll of the plant in the insects which it allures, but 

 also utilizing it as a safe retreat in which to rear its young. The 

 spider spreads a diaphragm of web half way down the tube, and 

 its egg-mass may be found suspended there a short distance 

 above the water. 



The maggots of the pitcher-plant fly, Sarcophaga sarracem'ce 

 Riley, are so uniformly present and so abundant in every species 

 of pitcher-plant which I have examined from the swamps of 

 Lake Superior to the bay-heads of Florida that I am constrained 

 to think they have a more intimate connection with the economy 

 of the plant than has been assigned to them. They certainly aid 

 materially in disintegrating the mass of accumulated insects in 

 the pitchers, and I see no reason for considering that they rob the 

 plant of its proper food, since they must add their own excreta 

 to the macerated digestive material, and this may serve the needs 

 of the plant as well, or even better, than the disintegration of the 

 animal matter produced by its own fluids. 



A species of the interesting and little known parrot-beak 

 pitcher-plant, S. psittacina, was common at De Funiak, growing 

 low in the wet grass about the roots of the giant tubes of S. flava. 

 The curious bladder-like pitchers of this species are constricted 

 at the lip in a narrow opening, and I found the contained liquids 

 received only insects of the smallest size, chiefly minute gnats, 

 Cecidomyiidae ; the smaller Staphylinidae, such as Atheta and 

 Trogophlrcus, were also represented there, together with minute 

 semi-aquatic Hemiptera and Thrips. The accumulation of dead 



