f 



14 CYRTIDAE OF NORTH AMERICA 



in the abdomen of the host breathe by placing their caudal spir- 

 acles in one of the lung chambers of the spider. The larvae were 

 about ten millimeters long and rather thick, the body composed 

 of twelve segments; the head small and fitted with maxillae. 

 They were amphineustic, having prothoracic and caudal spiracles. 



Mr. J. H. Emerton (33) was the first to record the finding of a 

 Cyrtid larva in America. Mr. C. W. Johnson, in 1903, reported 

 rearing Acrocera fasciata from Lycosa stonei Montgomery, twenty- 

 five per cent of the spiders being parasitized. Montgomery, in 

 his paper on the habits of spiders, in 1903, reported rearing the 

 same species from Lycosa stonei. One spider contained two and 

 the others one each of the larvae. The parasite was very large 

 and ate most of the soft parts of the spider, emerging from a 

 hole in the abdominal wall, thus killing the host. ''A short time 

 before the parasite escapes the spider acts in a peculiar manner 

 walking about spasmodically and often spinning aimlessly." 



Verrall said that the larvae of the Cyrtidae were parasitic on 

 such spiders as the Avicularidae, Theridae and Drassidae. 

 Wandolleck described a new species of Ogcodes which he received 

 from North Queensland, Australia, collected by Mr. Dodd, who 

 supplied the following notes: "In crevices of the leaf nests of the 

 green ant (Oecophylla virescens Fabr.) a pretty jumping spider 

 lives and breeds. The nests are generally abandoned. A bulky 

 female of the spider was left in a box so it could be observed, and 

 was soon found dead with the abdomen small and shrunken and 

 a peculiar dark object in the web. Later in the day it became 

 lighter in color and was made out to be a short thick pupa, which 

 emerged in about twelve days. The spider was Cosmophasia 

 hitaeniata Keyserling, and the fly determined as Oncodes [Ogcodes] 

 doddi. Two more spiders bred out this Oncodes. ^^ 



In 1894, Konig published an article on the eggs and first stage 

 larvae of an Ogcodes. The material was collected by Brauer in a 

 meadow in Gmunden, Upper Austria, early in August. Both 

 Ogcodes gibbosus and 0. zonatus were collected nearby, so the 

 identity of the larvae is not certain. The young Ogcodes larvae 

 were found by Brauer on dry bushes. "The smallest twigs were 

 regularly covered with black dots in rows . . . the pear- 

 shaped eggs colored deep blaeldsh brown and fastened tight to the 

 twigs by the small end, opening with a small lid. What appear 



