WEST INDIAN MELOIDAE — SELANDER AND BOUSEMAN 213 



Vazquez, UPR, one. st. vincent: Southern end of island, May, 

 H. H. Smith, BM, one. 



Remarks: We have been unable to find significant differences 

 between series of specimens from different islands in the West Indies 

 or between the West Indian material and specimens from Brazil and 

 Trinidad. Varieties in which the median two fasciae of each elytron 

 are absent or in which the elytra are entirely black have been described 

 from South America. 



In Blackwelder's catalogue (1945) the reference to Puerto Rico in 

 the list of localities for C. auriculata should be transferred to the list for 

 C. maculata, as this reference is based on Wolcott's misidentification 

 (1924, 1936) of the latter species. 



Swederus (1787) described C. maculata from an unspecified number 

 of specunens in the collection of "D. Davies." The present location 

 of this material is not known to us. 



Habits: The Uterature on the parasitic association of Cissites 

 maculata and various species of Xylocopa bees was briefly reviewed 

 recently by Hurd (1958). Unfortunately, this review failed to men- 

 tion the only definite association in the West Indies, that recorded 

 by Fleutiaux and Salle (1889), who noted that at Trois-Rivieres, 

 Guadeloupe, beetles had been observed coming out of the nest, 

 located in the rafters of a stable, of a bee identified by them as X. 

 aeneipennis DeGeer.^ These authors also reported specimens col- 

 lected at light on the same island. The specimen of C. maculata 

 that we have studied from St. Vincent (previously reported by 

 Champion, 1896) bears the notation that it was found dead under a 

 rotten log. 



The habits of the adidt beetles have not been described. It is 

 known, however, that in a related species, Synhoria testacea (Fabri- 

 cius), the female oviposits in the burrow of the host bee, and it may 

 well be that Cissites exhibits this same behavioral degeneracy. In 

 this connection the absence of records of plant associations for adult 

 Cissites beetles seems significant, for it has been established in the 

 nemognathine genera Tricrania and Hornia that evolutionary elimi- 

 nation of the habit of ovipositing on the food plants of host bees is 

 accompanied by loss of feeding activity on the part of the adult beetles. 



» The biological observations on C. maculata and X. teredo Quilding reported by GuUding in 1825 may 

 have been made in the West Indies, as Ilurd (1958) assumed, inasmuch as GuUding was Uving on the Is- 

 land of St. Vincent at tlie time that his article appeared. However, in this article GuUding did not give a local- 

 ity for hli observations, while in a supplementary note published 2 years later, GuUding (1827) implied that 

 his observations were made in South America. Brues' citation (1924) of Barbados as the locality in ques- 

 tion can be discounted; it was based on his failure to distinguish between the two articles of GuUding. 

 SImUarly, MacSwain's opinion, as expressed by Hurd (1958), that "the mcloid identified by OuUduig as 

 Hmia maculata Is probably Cissites auriculata" certainly refers to GuUding's 1827 Barbados record and 

 not, as ImpUed by Hurd, to the insect treated by GuUding in 1825. 



