INSECUTOR INSCITI^ MENSTRUUS 123 



nothing, but imagined vaguely that they must in some way 

 resemble those of quaylei. Of course, with two species and a 

 race in America, the European dorsalis did not concern us 

 much, as it was quite presumably distinct. 



While the monograph was still in press, in 1916, the senior 

 author obtained eggs from captive females in Nevada, a 

 typically inland place and therefore certainly curriei. He wet 

 the eggs after first drying them, and, contrary to expectation, 

 the larvse immediately hatched. To add to this heretical be- 

 havior, for, being curriei with supposedly but a single annual 

 generation, they should not have hatched until after being 

 subjected to the cold of a northern winter, the head hairs were 

 single and the comb scales without a distinct central spine, 

 thus agreeing with quaylei or onondagensis. It still appeared 

 possible that there were two species mixed up under curriei 

 and that one of them was perhaps to be considered medio- 

 lineata Ludlow, which was referred in the monograph as a 

 melanotic form of curriei. However, no change was intro- 

 duced in the monograph, which was published immediately. 

 The following year the senior author continued his investiga- 

 tions, this time in Montana, where he found that the curriei 

 larvse were of the same form as in Nevada, and, moreover, 

 had the habit of breeding in irrigation pools at intervals all 

 through the summer. The supposed difference in habit be- 

 tween the coast form and the inland form no longer existed, 

 since eggs of either hatched whenever they were wet, whether 

 the water were salt tidal water, or spring rains, or melting 

 snow, or accidental irrigation pools. Moreover, the larval 

 differences had likewise disappeared, and the question had 

 come around to the correctness of the junior author's observa- 

 tions in Saskatchewan. The material was, therefore, carefully 

 gone over and it was found that, while there were plenty of 

 true curriei, the particular skins which had been mounted and 

 studied as curriei for all these years were nothing but cana- 

 densis. The true curriei from Saskatchewan have single head- 

 hairs and the scales of the lateral comb without strong central 

 spine exactly as in Nevada and Montana. This unfortunate 

 mistake created a complicated viewpoint and has led to a 



