OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XVII, 1915 125 



opods may be found indicate that the development of the individ- 

 uals to maturity is a very slow process and it is now expected 

 that such development from egg to egg-laying adult will require 

 four or more years. 



As Mr. Coville has indicated, the role played by the species 

 is that of a reducer of the waste material in the forest. From 

 the peculiar symbiotic relationship upon which the digestion of 

 such myriopods is said to be dependent it would appear that 

 anything upsetting the balance of this interdependence would 

 react against the myriopod. Under the original continuously 

 forested condition of the eastern United States the distribution 

 of these myriopods was probably much more general but now 

 they are found in comparatively circumscribed colonies so that 

 the chief enemy of the species may be the indirect influences 

 affecting the forest conditions. The older myriopods are well 

 protected against general predators by a strong acid secretion 

 of the lateral pores, but there are two enemies 'to whom this 

 secretion seems to act as an appetizer. The larvae of Phengo<l<'* 

 appear to feed only upon this and allied myriopods and in the 

 combat that follows the attack of one of these beetle larvae both 

 the larva and the victim become entirely covered with the offen- 

 sive yellow secretion which appears to cause certain death to 

 almost any other insect larvae that may be confined in the jar 

 with them. Mr. Banks and others 1 have described the attacks 

 of a small parasitic phorid fly (Aphiochceta Xanthippe Banks, 

 1911 juli Brues, 1908) which appears generally to breed in 

 other small julids and whose presence causes very great annoy- 

 ance to all sizes of Spirobolus, yet no observation has been made 

 to prove that the fly is actually able to breed in Spirobolus. On 

 two or three occasions large sarcophagid (?) larvae have been found 

 in dead Spirobolus in the woods, but no proof of parasitism came 

 to the writer's notice until Mr. W. S. Fisher told him of the 

 attack of a large fly on an apparently healthy myriopod which 

 frantically tried to escape, but on which he found several freshly 

 deposited larvae. He failed to catch the fly but saved the Spiro- 

 bolus for breeding. It lived five days and from it he preserved u 

 larva and a pupa of the parasite but unfortunately reared only 



* Knab's short note on this species (Ins. Ins. Mens., vol. 1, 1913, p. 24) 

 cites the following references to its habits: 

 1884 Lintner, Can. Ent., vol. 16, p. 80. 

 1884 Dimmock, Can. Ent., vol. 16, p. 80. 

 1908 Brues, Journ. X. Y. Ent. Soc., vol. 16, p. 2O1. 



1911 Banks, Proc. Ent, Soc. Wash., vol. 13, p. 212. 



1912 Malloch, Proc. U. S. Nat, Mas., vol. 43, p. 459. 



