178 Kansas Academy of Science, 



OCCURRENCE OF PODAGRION MANTIS IN THE EGGS OF 

 . THE COMMON MANTIS. 



By LuMiNA C. Riddle Smyth, Ph. D., Topeka. 



DURING the fall of 1906 I foim(f numerous packets of the 

 eggs of the common mantis, Stagmomantis Carolina, 

 attached here and there to the branches in a small orchard. 

 On leaving the place early in April, 1907, one of these packets 

 was collected, twig and all. The twig was stuck into the earth 

 in a flower-pot, where it remained for some time in the tem- 

 perature of the living-room. The eggs were not collected early 

 enough to escape the influence of the summer-like heat of 

 March, 1907, but did escape the return to winter conditions 

 that followed in April and even May. 



In early May I chanced to read an article in volume IV of 

 Insect Life concerning the occurrence of a chalcid parasite in 

 mantis eggs ; so, although the packets looked perfectly normal, 

 I placed them in a bottle to prevent the loss of anything that 

 might emerge from them. On June 8 a single parasite had 

 emerged. The long ovipositor, enlarged posterior femora and 

 wing venation all indicated its relationship to the chalcids, 

 and it was evidently identical with Podagrion mantis Ashm. 

 By June 10 all the parasites had emerged by gnawing their 

 way out through the sides of the packet. They were removed 

 to another bottle and counted. There were fifty-four females 

 and only four males. All had emerged through less than a 

 dozen holes. The egg-case remained in the original bottle, 

 and on June 24 there were again signs of life. About sixty 

 young mantids had been uninjured and had issued through the 

 usual openings. 



The genus Podagrion was named by Spinola in 1811, and 

 later the same genus was described under other generic titles 

 by other- authors. This particular species has been known 

 since 1854, and was reared by Prof. C. V. Riley, in Missouri, 

 in 1868, but was not named until 1885, by Ashmead. Prac- 

 tically all of the species of Mantidse thus far studied have been 

 found to have some egg parasite, but while nearly every collec- 

 tion has some representatives of the genus Podagrion, com- 

 paratively few have been studied and named. The dates of 

 the appearance of the parasite, so far as I am able to learn, is 



