150 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



hairs. Legs moderately long and thick, the claws a little incurvate on 

 tip ; hind legs shorter ; claws short, strong, pyramidal. Color yellowish 

 gray ; head above witli two black bands, enlarged before, and on each 

 side an incurved black line, touching the front corner of the band and 

 going behind to the lateral margin ; before the bands two angular spots ; 

 lateral margin dark ; head below blackish brown on the middle of front 

 margin, and on the sides below the eye-cones yellowish ; on each side of 

 the base brownish, less dark ; prothorax with two blackish longitudinal 

 bands, broader anteriorly ; basal segment with two angular spots ; abdo- 

 men above gray, checkered with black ; two black bands on each side 

 are interrupted to form square black spots ; below the abdomen is more 

 yellowish at base, with angular black spots between the legs, which are 

 pale yellow. 



Long., 23 m.m.; lat., 10 m.m. 



Comparing this larva with those supposed to belong to A. fallax 

 (Stett Ent. Z., 1873, p. 266), there can be no doubt that they belong to 

 different species. Those of A. fallax are longer, more slender, the head 

 narrower, longer, the lateral margins of abdomen with long black brushes, 

 the teeth of mandibles different, and the part of the mandible in which 

 they are inserted more inflated ; besides the colors are different. 



The larva of A. Americana is in shape, form and color more like that 

 of A. occitanica, but the teeth of the latter are more like those oi fallax. 



The shed larva skin of Americana., 12 m.m. long, is before me ; also 

 the cocoon, 20 m.m in diameter, externally covered with sand. 



A nymph just hatched, 26 mm. long, is still partly in the skin; the 

 mandibles are just as broad and just as serrated as Brauer figures them 

 for A. occitanica. In fact all stages are so similar that it is difticult to 

 believe them to belong to different genera. 



Habitat. — Mr. H. G. Hubbard, to whom I am indebted for this valu 

 able discovery, writes as follows : " The Acanthaclisis Americana I bred 

 from the larva. One died in quitting the cocoon. I never saw the imago 

 until I bred it, so it must be very rare in Florida. The larvae I found in 

 dry sand under a building in Crescent City, Florida. They do not make 

 pits, but they prey upon the common pit-fall making Myrmeleon larvae. 

 These they chase under the sand, as fish pursue their prey under water. 

 I found that in confinement they would not eat anything which remained 

 on top of the sand, nor which 1 purposely buried for them. But they 



