Embiidina 281 



more satisfactory to keep the males and females in separate dishes. 

 After isolation, when placed together on feathers they would copulate 

 in a very short time and their activities could be observed. 



In the life history studies the lice were given only the fluffier parts of 

 the feather as food. They fed readily, particularly if they were removed 

 from the feather for a time and then replaced. Experiments with 

 feathers from the Little Green Heron (Butorides virescens virescens) 

 showed that Lipeurus heterographus of the hen will feed on these 

 feathers. 



Experiments on feeding with pulverized dried blood from a fowl show 

 that this species relies on feathers for its essential food supply but 

 supplements this with blood when it is obtainable. The maximum time 

 for which 1st instar nymphs and adults could be kept alive on dried 

 blood alone was three days. This is, however, not true of all biting lice 

 since the writer failed to rear Menopon gallinae and M. stramineum, 

 or even to induce them to lay eggs, under the same conditions under 

 which Lipeurus heterographus thrived. Quite different food habits are 

 indicated for Menopon stramineum (Wilson, 1933). 



Bibliography 



Wilson, F. H. 1933. A louse feeding on the blood of its host. Science 77:49°- 



M. E. D. 



Order embiidina 



OLIGOTOMA TEX AN A* 



DURING the spring and early summer a number of Embiids belong- 

 ing to the species Oligotoma texana were captured alive and kept in 

 captivity in a vial for three months. They were killed at the end of 

 that time only because it was impossible to care for them longer. No 

 difficulty was experienced in keeping them alive; in fact they seemed 

 quite hardy. 



The individuals were kept alive in a loosely corked vial on a piece of 

 rotting wood which they immediately covered with their webs. After a 

 few days a cake crumb was dropped into the vial, and within thirty 

 seconds embiid heads appeared at the openings in the webs, followed by 

 their slender brown bodies as they made their way toward the food. 

 By the next morning the crumb was completely hidden in a maze of 

 silken tunnels which led from the rotting wood to it. Thereafter they 

 were fed a diet of bread crumbs, and they always elongated their tunnels 

 to include the food. 



M. E. D. 



* Abstracted from an article in Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 25:648, 1932. by Harlow B. Mills, 

 Montana State College. 



