48 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [February, 



Lepidoptera. In luring I did not catch much, except Catocake, the 

 smallest Noctuidae did not seem to be represented at all. I think the 

 electric lights have diminished insects to a great extent; before we had 

 them round us I could find Cecropia cocoons in my yard, and for the past 

 year or two I have not found them nearer than a mile and a half of the 

 city limits. The Anisota senatoria used to be very destructive to shrub 

 oaks round here, but this year I could not find but one or two trees that 

 had been eaten by them. In walking to my place of business 1 always 

 look under the electric lights, but very seldom find anything worth picking 

 up. EDWARD D. KEITH, Providence, R. I. 



TARDINESS OF IMAGINES from first brood reared north and emergence 

 of second brood of pupae in Autumn. Of a lot of Smerinthtis geminatus- 

 bred from ova, Aug. 3, 1894, which transformed within four weeks, a large 

 number imagines appeared, fully eighty per cent., between September 

 1 8th and agth. Of a number of collected larvae of Paonias my ops, second 

 brood also, which pupated last week of August, several of the perfect 

 insects emerged during latter half of September. Usually, these are ex- 

 ceptions to the general rule. Stranger behavior occurred among Cerato- 

 tnia catalpa-. Larvae collected south, raised here, which pupated between 

 June 12 and 19, 1894, with the exception of two or three imagines, refused 

 to come out. An equal number of larvae bred from the very same lot of 

 first brood down south, which pupated same time, and were shipped 

 north, almost the entire number emerged before July 2oth. Perhaps a 

 four-days' travel in the mail-bag, during a heated term, hastened matters. 



Dr. R. E. KUNZE. 



Do INSECTS PLAY? Under the title " The habit of amusement in the 

 lower animals," Mr. James Weir, Jr., in "The American Naturalist 1 ' for 

 October last, brings together a number of observations which he con- 

 siders as bearing upon the thesis that certain of the lower animals play. 

 The insect instances advanced are: first, the dancing in swarms of certain 

 midgets. He does not consider these swarms as mating swarms, since 

 on numerous occasions and at different seasons of the year, he has exam- 

 ined dozens and found them all to be unimpregnated females; he never 

 discovered a male among them. Further, he refers to the observations 

 of certain naturalists upon ants, showing that when these insects assemble 

 upon the surface of their nests, they sometimes behave in a way which 

 can only be explained as a simulation of festival sports or other games. 

 He has also observed a flea play what he considered to be a practical 

 joke upon an individual of the same species, and he has also seen certain 

 female Coccinellids indulge in "true psychical amusement." There is 

 room for additional observations in this interesting field, but it is one in 

 which the observer is very apt to jump to unjustified conclusions. 



ON ANT STINGS. Mr. Herbert H. Smith, in an interesting letter re- 

 cently received, writes as follows concerning the stings of S. American 

 ants: 



