26 Journal New York Entomological Society. [V°'- xxv. 



exception of the ninth; the abdominal segments particularly, have 

 the sides drawn out and curved posteriorly and armed at their apices 

 with long strong spines; spines also occur sparingly on the dorsum, 

 and smaller ones are scattered over the body, which is finely and ir- 

 regularly granulated. The legs are slender and spinose, the tarsal 

 claws simple though spined basally. The prolegs, of which there is 

 but a single anal pair, have each side subdivided into six slender 

 furcate processes and an inner shorter and stouter furcate process. 

 All these sixteen processes are armed with rows of recurved hooks. 

 The prolegs are less divided than in Photimis, and can be extended 

 fanwise to serve both as an organ of propulsion and of adhesion, the 

 tiny booklets giving the insect a firm hold. The abdominal prolegs 

 of beetle larvae have been much studied by Brass (1914). He terms 

 the organ, which is a development of the tenth abdominal segment, 

 the seventh foot, and says that it finds its highest modification in the 

 lampyrid Luciola italica, which has the proleg dichotomously branched 

 into one hundred and twenty filaments. Brass suggests that it owes 

 its development to the unsupported weight and extent of the abdomen. 

 When fully expanded the soft fleshy foot covers a large area, and 

 while not in use is protected by being completely withdrawn into the 

 body cavity. 



Photuris pennsylvanica uses its prolegs extensively in climbing 

 weeds, and also employs them to brace itself, though often ineffec- 

 tually, against the pull of its struggling prey. Occasionally it will 

 curve the end of the abdomen over its back and use the finely divided 

 seventh foot as a broom with which to clean its dorsum. This has 

 also been observed in some European Lampyridse, by Targioni Tozetti 

 (1865), Berlese (1909), Fabre (1913), etc. Species like Lampyris 

 noctiliica that feed upon snails, thus wipe off the slime which has 

 soiled them. 



The larva of Photuris is capable of enduring considerable drought 

 and of surviving for some time without food. Specimens which 

 hatched about July 2y, 1913, were offered cut-up insects, chiefly flies, 

 which they devoured in the evening or in artificial darkness, hiding 

 during the day in crannies and under lumps of earth. In feeding, 

 they congregate about their food in some numbers and inserting their 

 small extrusible heads into the victim soon convert it into a mere 

 shell. . 



