4 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., '09. 



i6th, which specimen, however, was bred in the warm labora- 

 tory. March igth a specimen was taken resting on the trunk 

 of a Monterey pine growing in the Stanford Arboretum, and 

 a day later several of the midges emerged indoors. Early in 

 April adults were plentiful, and one female was observed prob- 

 ing about rapidly with her long, slender ovipositor on a hard, 

 dry resin nodule. No eggs were found here, however, but on 

 the same day a few soft, oblong, orange-colored eggs were 

 discovered in a fissure at the base of a rather soft, whitish 

 lump of resin, which harbored a colony of resinicoloides pupae, 

 Late in May a short search revealed numerous extruded pupal 

 shells, no adults and but few eggs. No search was made for 

 larvae in summer, but in September, 1907, many well-grown 

 ones, scarcely smaller than mature larvae of spring, were 

 found. It is quite likely that the insect is single-brooded, 

 spending the greater portion of its life in the larval state. 

 As with C. resinicola of the Eastern United States, our west- 

 ern resin midge has gregarious habits, the larvae numbering 

 from a very few to more than fifty in the same nodule, which 

 is always soft so long as the insects are feeding. Colonies of 

 resinicoloides larvae were most commonly found in masses of 

 pitch which exuded from places where limbs had been sawed 

 off at the trunk, the bark closing around such wounds, fre- 

 quently forming hollows where much resin accumulated, and 

 thus furnished an ideal place for a colony of these insects. 

 Smaller colonies were found in cracks in the branches filled 

 with resin, and in small resinous globules on twigs. In no 

 case did it seem probable that the larvae were the primary 

 cause of the resinous exudation. Besides occurring on Mon- 

 terey pine, a small colony of these larvae were discovered in a 

 lump of resin on a Pinus muricata ( ?) growing in the Stan- 

 ford Arboretum. 



Several experiments were made with resinicoloides larvae 

 to ascertain if possible whether they could make a prolonged 

 stay completely buried in the resinous mass. Whenever larvae 

 were covered with semi-liquid resin they worked they way to 

 the surface if the resin had not become too hard, and brought 



