92 A. S. PEARSE 



prolonged sojourn in a monochrome environment might influ- 

 ence their locomotor reactions; an experiment was therefore 

 conducted to test this point. On December 5, two cases bearing 

 larvae which had been in red and green color boxes, seven and 

 twentv-eight days respectively, were tested in the apparatus 

 shown in Figure 3. A rectangular glass dish containing water 

 was placed in a box painted half green and half red. They were 

 placed separately in the center of the dish and allowed to move 

 toward either end. The larva from the red color box went to 

 the red end of the dish six times and to the green end four times ; 

 the one from green box gave three reactions toward the red and 

 tw^o toward the green. No striking tendency to go toward either 

 color was shown. 



From these experiments the conclusion may be drawn that 

 the Neuronia larva selects the objects for its case without refer- 

 ence to their color. However, it will nevertheless generally be 

 protectively colored. 



The Spider, Misumena aleatoria (Hentz) Emerton *. — This 

 crab-spider is common in the flowers of the fields about Ann 

 Arbor and is readily collected with a beating net. Its particular 

 interest for this paper lies in the fact that it has two striking 

 color varieties, one white and one yellow^, Emerton ('02) says: 

 " Whether spiders prefer flowers like themselves is an unsettled 

 question; at any rate, Misumenas of all colors and both sexes 

 have been found on white flowers." 



Naturally, the first question to be answered is whether there 

 are more yellow Misumenas on yellow than on white flowers and 

 vice versa. The results of collections made during the months of 

 August and September in 1909 and 1910 are shown in Table VI. 



Some of the spiders collected could not be classed as white or 

 yellow and two other varieties were made to include this compara- 

 tively small number, i. e., green, for those with a greenish tint, 

 and red, for those in which the abdomen was nearly covered with 

 reddish brown blotches. The flowers from which collections were 

 made were as follows; Yellow — golden rod (Solidago sp. ?) also 

 a few from sunflowers {Helianthus sp. ?) and " butter and eggs " 



* -All the spiders used in these experiments were not accurately determined to 

 belong to this species; all the adult females, however, agreed with Emerton's ('0-4) 

 description of M. aleatoria; the smaller males are difficult to identify and some 

 of them may have belonged to other species of the genus Misumena. 



