THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 255 



with its crystalline appearance make it a very beautiful object and suggest 

 the name. The basal third is solid, then comes the thin-walled larval cell in 

 the middle of the gall leaving the distal third or more tubular with the open 

 end slightly flaring. The exit hole is made into the hollow portion. The gall 

 was figured by Dr.E.P. Felt in his paper on "Gall Insects in their Relation to 

 Plants" in Sci.Mo. 6:515, Fig. g (June, 1918), and again in the Ottawa Naturalist 

 32:130, Fig. g, and was also characterized by him under the above manuscript 

 name in his "Key to Am. Insect Galls" in Bull. N. Y. State Mus. 200:106. 



Habitat. — The species was first brought to my attention by three specimens 

 sent by Dr. Felt, collected by Messrs. Bethel and Hedgcock two miles S.W. 

 of Prescott, Ariz., in the fall of 1917. These were cut open on Dec. 5, 1917, 

 and gave three living adults, one of which was selected as the type. On Apr. 

 11, 1918, while collecting for the U. S. Bureau of Entomology, Division of 

 Forest Insects, I took galls near Williams, Ariz., on a hillside N.W. of Supai 

 siding, and flies began to emerge before Apr. 16. On Apr. 13, 1918, a lot more 

 were taken near Prescott, and flies emerged by Apr. 20 and continued to come 

 out until the last of May. The larvse evidently transform to adults in the fall 

 but remain in the galls all winter and emerge the next spring. An alternating 

 sexual generation produced in an early summer gall is suspected but not known. 



The U. S. National Museum possesses galls of this species, found on an 

 unknown oak from Durengo, Mexico. 



CATORAMA NIGRITULUM Lec.,i AND ITS FUNGUS HOST. 



BY HARRY B. WEISS, NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. 



This member of the family Ptinidse was recently found at Springfield and 

 Monmouth Junction, N.J., breeding in the sporophore or fruiting body of 

 Fames applanatiis} Smith^ records it only from Woodbury, July 7 (Brn.) 

 and Blatchley* states that it is scarce in Vermillion and Lawrence counties, 

 Indiana, May 24-June 13. Fall in his "Revision of the Ptinidae of Boreal 

 America"^ records it as occurring in Mass., D.C., Va., W. Va., Ohio, Mich., 

 Tenn., Miss., Indian Territory and Texas, and writes as follows about the 

 genus Catorama, — ^"very little is known as yet concerning the life- habits of the 

 species of this genus. Certain species are known to inhabit galls while others 

 have been found in the seeds or stems of various plants." 



At Springfield, N.J., on April 8, several specimens of the beetle were taken 

 from the fungus Fames applanatus. More than a month later, or on May 30, 

 numerous adults, several pupae and many larvae of all sizes were found in an- 

 other specimen of the same fungus at Monmouth Junction, N.J. Both the 

 context and tubes of the fungus w^ere bored by the insects, but most of the 

 feeding appeared to have taken place in the tubes. The pupal cells also were 

 found in the tubes. 



Fames applanatus (Pers.) Wallr., occurs on old logs and stumps of de- 

 ciduous trees in various parts of New Jersey. Overholts in his " Polyporaceae 



1. Kindly identified by Mr. C. W. Leng. 



2. Kindly identified by Mr. Erdman West. 



3. Insects of New Jersey, N. J. State Museum Report, 1909, p. 307. 



4. Coleoptera of Indiana, p. 880. 



5. Tr. Am. Ent. Soc, XXXI, 1905, p. 97-296. 

 November, 1919 



