ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



AND 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SECTION 



ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA. 



VOL. XV. 



NOVEMBER, 1904. 



No. 9. 



CONTENTS: 



Moore Courtship of Mayflies 289 



Banks Yellow-fly of Dismal Swamp.. 290 



Cockerell New Genera of Bees 292 



Daniel New California Thysanoptera 293 

 Skinner A new Thecla from the 



Northwest 298 



Girault Dysphaga tenuipes Hald. ; 



Brief notes ; record of a parasite 299 



Kearfott Notes on the Life History of 



Polychrysa formosa Grote 301 



Ashmead A new Torymid from Utah 302 

 Adams Descriptions of new Oscinidie 303 



Editorial 305 



Notes and News 306 



Entomological Literature 312 



Doings of Societies 313 



Courtship of Mayflies 



By R. M. MOORE, M. D. 



We usually expect all courting to be done by the male sex 

 so the following observation may be of interest as showing that 

 some of the Ephemeridae recognize leap year. 



One warm damp evening in this June, just as I sat by my 

 study table, close to an open widow, my attention was attracted 

 by the dropping onto the blotter of a female Bcetis propinquiis 

 Walsh ; in a moment she was followed by eight males. These 

 alighted fairly near to the female and remained in about the 

 same position as where they landed without showing any special 

 excitement, occasionally waving their bodies from side to side 

 and waving their anal setae. The female on the contrary showed 

 great excitement, waving her body and waving her setae almost 

 constantly. She seemed in this way to obtain some sense of 

 direction, and by it to locate the position of the males. As soon 

 as she settled where one was she would back up towards him, 

 stopping a moment to wave her body from side to side and 

 then continue her retrograde movement. 



289 



