172 Journal Xew York Entomological Society, t^'o'- ^^^• 



on arboreal species, this is not brightly colored but sordid whitish- 

 yellow. It is of the usual form of these larvae, but secretes a waxy 

 substance that exudes in long strings and gives the insect the appear- 

 ance of being covered with cotton or hoar frost. This secretion 

 seems to be much more palatable to the ants than that of the Pemphi- 

 gus, and they unconcernedly see the Coccinellid feasting upon the 

 former apparently concluding that the flavor is improved by passing 

 through the latter." The meaning of the last sentence is not clear, 

 unless Smith actually believed that the ants feed on the waxy secre- 

 tion of the Pemphigus and Brachyaeantha larvae ! 



Schwarz' says that the larva of Brachyaeantha ursina " is abun- 

 dant near Washington, D. C, in the colonies of Lasius claviger prey- 

 ing upon the Pemphigus domesticated by the ants. Whether or not 

 this is the normal habit of the larva must be left to future observa- 

 tions." Whether the larva mentioned by these two authors is that 

 of the true B. ursina or of B. 4-punctata which, as Leng says, was 

 supposed by Crotch and others to be merely a variety of ursina, I am, 

 of course, unable to decide. 



Mann^ has very recently described and figured what is unques- 

 tionably the larva of a Coccinellid closely related to Brachyaeantha 

 from a nest of Formica camponoticcps at Wawaiwai, Washington. 

 This larva measured 6-7 mm. in length and. as the figure shows, 

 differs from my larvae of B. 4-punctata only in having the head p'"o- 

 portionally larger, the body somewhat more cylindrical and in bemg 

 "covered densely with a white powder," instead of with long, dense 

 tufts of wax. This last difference, however, may be unessential since 

 rubbed Brachyaeantha larvae have the appearance of being merely 

 powdered with the waxy secretion. 



The only Coccinellid larvie which I find recorded as living in 

 ant-nests in the old world are Seymnns formicarius Muls., cited by 

 Wasmann^ as having been found in the imaginal stage with Formica 

 rufa in eastern Siberia, and Hyperaspis reppensis which was observed 



^ Myrmecophilous Coleoptera found in Temperate Xorth America. Proc. 

 Ent. Soc. Wash., I, No. 4, 1890, pp. 237-247. 



* On Some Northwestern Ants and their Guests. Psyche, XV'III, No. 3, 

 191 1, pp. 102-100, 3 figs. 



'^ Kritisches Verzeichniss der myrmekophilen und termitophilen Arthro- 

 poden. Berlin, 1894, P- 161. 



