Vol. xxii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 22Q 



POSSIBLE CAUSES OF LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF ODONATA. [The follow- 

 ing suggestion occurs in a recent letter.] I want to get more observa- 

 tions on our old gravel pits especially. They offer a great opportunity, 

 but my time has always been too limited to avail myself of it. I be- 

 lieve, however, that these old pits have a richer dragonfly fauna a few 

 years after they are abandoned, than they have in later years. The 

 dragonflies reach the ponds first their enemies or checks of some sort 

 come later. This may go a long way to explain the uniformity of 

 odonate life in old marshes such as coastal brackish marshes a few 

 widely distributed species a dead level of adaptation. no ebb or flow 

 of new odonate life across it. In the newly made pools (ox bow bends, 

 bayous, pools at foot of cliffs along rivers, pools in parks, gravel pits, 

 etc.) occur the rarer (i, e., more isolated, scattered) species to last a 

 greater or lesser number of years and give way to a few common, wide- 

 ly distributed species. I don't mean that the common widely distributed 

 species necessarily drive away the others possibly in later years fish 

 get established in the ponds, and the first dragonfly occupants are 

 checked or exterminated by fish, which do not prey on later arrivals. 

 E. B. WILLIAMSON, Bluffton, Indiana. 



THE LIFE HISTORY OF ATTEVA AUREA FITCH. It was at the later 

 part of August when I was out collecting, that my attention was called 

 to a web which looked to me like a spider's nest, on a small ailan- 

 thus bush. By investigating more closely, I saw a chrysalis suspended 

 in the web. Not knowing what it was, I took it home, and several 

 days after, a small moth emerged and proved to be Atteva aurea. 

 As I knew the food plant now, I looked in the same neighborhood and 

 found several similar webs containing newly hatched, as well as full 

 grown, larvae and also chrysalids in them. The full grown larva is 

 about i% inches long, blackish, with a distinct brown stripe all along 

 its back, while the sides are dotted with fine white spots. When dis- 

 turbed the larva moves quite actively in the web. Looking for eggs, 

 1 found some attached to the web, distributed half an inch apart from 

 each other, and this method of laying the eggs very likely accounts 

 for the finding of newly-hatched caterpillars, as well as full grown 

 larvae in the same web. The larva turns into a chrysalis in the same 

 web. Previously to finding these, I occasionally took the moths in 

 July, sitting on the flowers of the button ball bush, iron weed, etc.. 

 but never later. But this proves that the moths must be double 

 brooded around Philadelphia, as all the moths hatched in September 

 and October. As far as I could find out, there is no record as to 

 food plant or life history of this little moth, but should any other col- 

 tors have made any observations in this respect, I would like to hear 

 from them. CARL ILG, 2728 Somerset St., Philadelphia. 



