248 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



OVIPOSITION BY AN EVANIID, EVANIA APPENDIGASTER LINN. 



BY VERNON R. HABER, 

 North Carolina State Dept. Agriculture, Raleigh, N.C. 



Recently the author and his wife witnessed oviposition by an ensign fly, 

 Evania appendigaster Linn, in an egg mass of an Oriental cockroach, Blatta 

 orientalis Linn. 



On Sunday evening, August 8, 1920, as the female Evaniid drank from 

 a drop of water which accidentally had been spilled upon the floor of our room 

 she was captured by inverting an ordinary glass tumbler over her, slipping a 

 piece of paper between the mouth of the tumbler and the floor upon which it 

 rested. As this was done the Evaniid leaped upon the inside wall of the tumbler, 

 soon becoming rather restless, for she ran over the inside surface of the glass 

 and over the piece of paper upon which it rested. 



Fortunately we had at our disposal an egg mass of a cockroach, Blatta 

 orientalis Linn, which had been deposited in the morning of the same day 

 that we captured the Evaniid. By slightly tipping the inverted tumbler we 



Fig. 23. — Oviposition of Evania appendigaster L. 



shoved the Blattid egg mass beneath it. Much to our surprise almost immediately 

 there in bright electric lamp light the Evaniid left the inside wall of the con- 

 fining tumbler, ran over the Blattid ootheca, crawled over the surface momentar- 

 ily as she actively vibrated her antenna and finally settled upon it with the long 

 axis of her body parallel with the long axis of the egg mass as it lay upon its right 

 side. Having satisfactorily settled herself, lying upon her right side she ex- 

 tended her ovipositor and crawling slightly forward she punctured the ootheca 

 in the fifth egg cell of the left side, remaining in position for about fifteen minutes. 

 She then left the egg mass and resting upon the inside wall of the tumbler actively 

 cleaned the ovipositor, wings and antennae. Later, at 10.00 p.m. I turned the 

 ootheca that it rested upon its left side. She revisited it but soon ran a short 

 distance away and continued to clean her legs, wings and antennae. On the 

 following day we introduced another freshly deposited egg mass of the same 

 species of cockroach. The Evaniid visited it and running inquisitively around 

 it several times she finally tried to turn it upon its opposite side by running across 

 the middle of its length dragging the hind legs that they hooked the flanged 

 edge of the ootheca. She failed to turn it completely over and left it, apparently 

 little concerned by its presence. 



X of the figure represents the ootheca of Blatta orientalis Linn, lying upon its 

 right side and the Evaniid in position as she oviposits in the puncture which 

 she has made at (a). 



Y of the figure shows the ootheca still in the same position as in X, but the 

 Evaniid has left it, showing the oviposition puncture at (a). 



November, 1920 



