332 The University Science Bulletin. 



army returning, laden mostly with soft, white ants or termites, was 

 patronized by one of these flies. The burdens being large, however, 

 necessitated several ant-carriers apiece, and thus made it rather 

 difficult for Bengalia to operate. 



Among the numerous arthropods that resemble ants are various 

 spiders. That some of these are more or less associated with the 

 ants they resemble is beyond doubt, but the whole subject, I be- 

 lieve, is still in a rather speculative stage. There are spiders that re- 

 semble Q^cophylla; many, Polyrhachis ; some, Diacamma and others. 

 This resemblance is often excellent, though one will learn quickly 

 to differentiate ant and spider. The latter usually has much the 

 better vision of the two, and so if disturbed will wheel about sharply, 

 very unlike an ant. Spiders have four pairs of legs, and these ant- 

 resembling species, in what suggests to us an endeavor to mimic 

 antennse, will wave the first pair of legs, also unlike an ant. While 

 these spiders are slender, and, like ants, properly constricted, the 

 large chelae do not much resemble the jaws of ants. They have 

 somewhat the habits of attid spiders. 



SOME BUTTERFLIES. 



Butterflies are not all children of the light. The tropics possess 

 a number of species that are addicted to a night life, or that at least 

 avoid the sunlight — mainly somber-colored insects that belong to 

 the families Hesperiidae (or skippers) and Satyridse — and elsewhere 

 they may be seen at sunset, or perhaps earlier on dark days, and 

 sometimes also before sunrise, flying about, feeding or laying their 

 eggs. I have found them coming to light but rarely, and it seems 

 probable that they are not so active when the night is far advanced. 



The largest of these crepuscular species that I have observed is 

 the coconut nymphalid, Amathusia phidippus Johanssen, a graceful 

 brownish insect with a wing expanse of about four inches. The 

 larva eats the leaves of the banana, the cocoanut, and probably of 

 other palms. 



The banana leaf roller, Erionota thrax Linne, is quite a large 

 skipper butterfly, whose larva makes a retreat of a strip of banana 

 leaf, which it cuts away from the edge and more or less parallel to 

 the midrib and rolls up as a wide ribbon. When it has outgrown or 

 consumed most of this roll, it constructs another and larger one 

 and pupates in the last one made. The larva is covered with a 

 mealy white substance. 



A skipper even larger than the banana leaf roller, and also prob- 



