58 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., '09 



Notes on the Life-Histories of Certain Wood -Boring 



Lepidoptera. 



BY FRANCIS X. WILLIAMS, San Francisco, Cal. 



( Plate \V.) 



Vespamina sequoia Hy. Edwards. 



In the Monterey pine forests at Carmel, Monterey Co., Cal., 

 this insect was quite plentiful. Usually the resinous masses 

 beneath which the larvae dwelt were not above the reach of 

 the hand, and I think it quite probable that the insect takes 

 advantage, as often as it may, of a wound in a pine trunk as 

 a nidus in which to oviposit. Those nodules in or under which 

 there are larvae are of soft consistency and exude resin; those 

 containing pupae in their silk-lined tubes, or larvae about to 

 pupate, may be known by their duller color, more generally 

 even surface, and by the fact that the pitch has ceased to flow 

 and the mass is somewhat hardened. As far as my observa- 

 tions go there is but one insect to a nodule, except sometimes 

 in those cases where an old mass of resin of considerable size 

 has been utilized by two. The adult has quite an extended sea- 

 son; pupae have been sent me at the end of March, 1908; the 

 preceding year in May I reared a male; during June, 1908, I 

 secured several more specimens ; and finally two emerged 

 during September of the same year. Like most other borers, 

 the pupa?, unless almost on the point of disclosing moths, will 

 dry up and die if taken out of their chambers. 



Sesia mellinipennis Boisduval. 



This is a common Californian "Clear-wing," somewhat vari- 

 able in markings and enjoying a wide range. The writer, 

 while examining a large decumbent trunk of Ceanothus thrysi- 

 fiorus in a canon a few miles south of Carmel, in June, 1908, 

 found the larvae and a pupa of this insect, the former boring 

 into the solid wood, the latter under the bark in a pupal cham- 

 ber of particles of wood fastened together with silk. A sec- 

 tion of the infested trunk was sawed off and taken to San 

 Francisco, where in August I was rewarded with three fine 

 moths. 



