72 Kansas Academy of Science. 



"Miall describes two English species which make a network of these 

 threads in advance of danger, and crawl along them when disturbed. I 

 do not think that Siinulium pecunrum does this, but that it spins the 

 threads as they become necessary, as a canker-worm would do. Larvae 

 are beginning to get very scarce now, and I was unable to make very 

 definite observations on this point. 



"March 18. — Placed a cage, which I made yesterday, in the water be- 

 tween two logs where the current was running very swiftly. The cage 

 was about 20 x 20 inches, the frame being of wood and having cheese- 

 cloth stretched tightly over it. On account of the physical action of the 

 surfact film, however, it is almost impossible to get water to go through 

 any fine mesh, and the cheesecloth is no exception. Even in this ex- 

 tremely swift current, the water inside the box did not seem to move. 

 Larvje were then very scarce, but I managed to find a few slightly in- 

 fested twigs and pJaced them in the cage, although I was compelled to 

 go down the bayou for a distance after them, and had to keep the larvae 

 in standing water for about five or ten minutes before placing them in 

 the cage. On the next morning, all of the larvae were dead, and as I 

 could find no more specimens, I had to discontinue the experiment. I 

 do not consider this small experiment as positive proof that the insects 

 cannot be bred in cages, although it looks very much that way, for the 

 specimens were necessarily few in number and had to be kept in jars for 

 a few minutes before being placed in the cage. 



"In the afternoon, I went down to a raft about three-quarters of a 

 mile below the bridge and looked carefully for stages of the gnats. All 

 of this raft is out of the main course of the bayou, resting in still water, 

 and I never found a single gnat stage. 



"March 19. — Paddled down stream about two miles to another bridge 

 (near which Mr. Harper Dean, jr., had his headquarters two years ago) 

 and examined material in and out of the current all the way down and 

 back. I could find no larvae anywhere. They seemed to have entirely 

 disappeared. A few pupae were found on sticks in the swiftest current. 

 The same conditions were found on the raft at the lower bridge. Even 

 in the swiftest current, I could find no gnat stage in any number. The 

 water in the bayou had fallen several feet, and there should have been 

 numerous places on the upper raft, where I had worked, to which the 

 larvae could have attached in numbers. 



"March 20. — After a thorough search in all parts of the bayou for 

 gnat stages, and finding none, I decided to abandon the investigation for 

 the time. It is to be regretted that the work could last so short a season, 

 and if I could have gotten to Bayou Pierre about two weeks earlier, it is 

 probable that more definite conclusions could have been reached. The 

 main issuance of the swarm seemed to have been over when I arrived, 

 and it is significant that during the week I was on the bayou I never 

 saw a single adult gnat, although I looked at the stock in the vicinity 

 quite often. 



"March 21. — In riding back to Frierson, my driver took me to several 

 places where the gnats had been unusually abundant, but our horses were 

 never bothered in the least, and the gnats seemed to have disappeared 

 entirely. These places agreed exactly with similar ones that had been 

 shown me by other planters, being swampy and dark." 



Further records pertain to two incidental captures made during the 

 year 1912. Determinations of the species are given on the authority of 

 Dr. W. D. Hunter. A few specimens of Simulium jjecuarum Riley were 

 collected in the window of a car on train at Winnfield, Winn parish, on 

 April 8, by Mr. J. B. Garrett. In the window of the entomological 

 laboratory in the experiment station building at Baton Rouge, May 17, 

 the writer took a single specimen of Simulmm meridionale Riley, which 



