NO. 3 HEMOLYMPH COAGULATION IN INSECTS IO, 



ON THE DISPARITIES IN THE REACTIONS OF COAGULATION OF THE 



HEMOLYMPH RECORDED AT THE SUPRASPECIFIC, SPECIFIC, 



AND INDIVIDUAL LEVELS 



i. In contrast to the taxonomic categories characterized by a pat- 

 tern of coagulation representative or predominant, other groups, 

 especially Carabidae (Gregoire, 1955a, p. 11 1 ; 1957, p. 16; Gregoire 

 and Jolivet, 1957, p. 12), exhibit such variations that, in spite of 

 increased samplings, a representative pattern did not appear clearly 

 in these groups at the family level, but provisionally at the generic 

 or specific levels. 



In that respect, incidental coincidences may be deceptive and sug- 

 gest erroneously that a pattern is characteristic of a genus, when it 

 may actually represent an incidental failure of the true pattern to 

 appear with all its particularities in a set of specimens being pro- 

 visionally, at the time of capture, in similar abnormal conditions. For 

 instance, in three specimens belonging to three different species of the 

 genus Agra (Carabidae), pattern II, incomplete in two of these speci- 

 mens, was predominantly observed in the present study, while 

 formerly, in three other species of the same genus, pattern I had 

 been consistently found (Gregoire, 1957, p. 16). Pattern III, possibly 

 dissociated in the individual samplings into its two components 

 (patterns I and II), might be the representative pattern of the genus 

 Agra. Other examples are furnished in Hymenoptera in the genera 

 Eciton (1957, p. 24) and Azteca (table), in which the predominant 

 patterns are possibly not the actual ones. 



In families such as Lycidae, Lampyridae, Coccinellidae, Chryso- 

 melidae {Cosmo gramma) , and Cassidinae (Cyclostoma) , the observa- 

 tions were handicapped by the presence in the hemolymph of particles 

 floating in considerable numbers, a finding already noticed (i955 a > 

 p. 106; 1957, p. 27; Gregoire and Jolivet, 1957, p. 30). 



2. Divergences at the specific or individual level recorded in genera 

 characterized by a pattern predominant or representative, appear, for 

 instance, in specimens of Cicadellidae. However, the pattern char- 

 acterizing the group was found incidentally in the samples (see under 

 comments in the table). 



At the individual level, pictures of another pattern were recorded 

 incidentally in limited fields of preparations exhibiting a predominant 

 pattern (Reduviidae: Stenopoda, Rasahus, Dysdercus; see also 1955a, 

 p. 109; 1957, p. 13; Gregoire and Jolivet, 1957, pp. 10-11). 



Tentative interpretation of these divergences have been presented 

 elsewhere (1955a, pp. ill, 124, 126; 1957, discussion; Gregoire and 



