26 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., '09. 



a dozen or more punctures. While actively at work oviposit- 

 ing, the females are almost fearless. After watching- one for 

 some time she was caught, placed in a large bottle, with the 

 piece of the cane containing the part that she was filling with 

 eggs. The handling, no doubt, alarmed her considerably, for 

 she laid no more eggs that evening. The next day she sat 

 quietly under a leaf until about four o'clock, when she began 

 running up and down the raspberry stem swaying her antennae 

 and examining it carefully. In a few minutes she placed her- 

 self lengthwise on the cane and began completing the cavity 

 that she had not been allowed to finish the preceding evening. 

 She soon laid an egg, covered it, and began drilling another 

 hole a little above and a little to one side of the last. 



This took place in the Insectary of Cornell University and 

 Professor Slingerland succeeded in getting an excellent pho- 

 tograph, shown in Fig. i, of the interesting operation from 

 life. The egg was laid in about twenty minutes, and as these 

 insects are much more excitable after depositing an egg, the 

 female became alarmed and after being replaced in the bottle 

 could not be induced to continue for several hours. At 10:00 

 P. M. I noticed that she had been at work for some time. She 

 had laid three or four eggs and was just in the act of covering 

 the last one. Having finished this to her satisfaction, she 

 began to prepare a place for the next just above and a little 

 to one side, by tearing off pieces of the epidermis of the cane 

 with her mouthparts and then gnawing a shallow depression. 

 This took her about four minutes. Then advancing up the 

 stem she felt for the place with her ovipositor and placed it 

 in the depression almost at right angles to the stem, as shown 

 in Fig. i. The ovipositor seemed to slip, so she backed down 

 to the place and gnawed the depression deeper. Again an at- 

 tempt and another failure, but after gnawing deeper for the 

 third time, it seemed satisfactory and active drilling com- 

 menced. This consists in pushing and swaying the ovipositor 

 and abdomen back and forth the whole body working ener- 

 getically, although the efforts are not as regular and forcible 

 as in Oecanthus niveus, which generally lays its eggs singly 



