The Crane-Flies of New York — Part II 847 



Epiphragma Jascipennis is a very common crane-fly thruout eastern 

 North America. As already stated, the immature stages are spent in 

 decaying or partly sound wood, a wide variety of deciduous trees and 

 shrubs being chosen, such as willow, elm, ash, buttonbush, and others. 

 Needham gives the pupal duration as about twelve days, larvae and 

 pupae found on May 18 emerging as adults on the 30th. A fully grown 

 larva that the writer found in a decayed log beneath moss at Ithaca, 

 New York, on May 8, 1917, pupated early in the morning of the 10th. 

 The specimen died on the 18th, when about to emerge, and this would 

 give a much shorter pupal period than is generally recorded for the genus. 

 It was noted at the same time that the larva superficially resembles the 

 larva of the leptid fly Chrysopila thoracica (Fabr.), with which it was 

 associated but from which it is easily distinguished by its massive head 

 capsule. 



Needham found abundant pupae in a decaying log of black ash (Fraxinus) 

 near Freeville, New York, on May 6, 1915. The pupae occurred in bur- 

 rows in the semi-decayed wood. Adults emerged on the 11th. Additional 

 material was found at Mud Creek, near Freeville, on May 15, 1915, in 

 elm (Ulmus). 



The account of the habits of the larvae as observed in Illinois by 

 Needham (1903:281-285) is here quoted in part: 



The larvae bore in the dead and fallen stems of buttonbush and willow, where these lie 

 on the mud at the borders of shallow ponds. I found them always in stems that were still 

 partially sound, tunneling beneath the bark or even into the deeper parts and into the 

 sounder wood. These stems are frequently submerged in spring and autumn, and even 

 La summer, when the pond has gone dry, ihey are always saturated with moisture 



The most interesting thing about the larva, aside from its wood-boring habits, is its singular 

 adaptation to amphibian life. It must needs live part of the time wholly submerged beneath 

 the waters of the pond, and part of the time out on land; it has, therefore, both open spiracles 

 and tracheal gills; and, moreover, its tracheal gills are so placed that they may be with- 

 drawn into the body in a dry time, where they escape the ills of too rapid evaporation. 



In his description of the immature stages, Needham points out a 

 probable error of Beling in describing a sexual dimorphism in the larvae 

 of a species of this genus — Beling stating that the larvae producing 

 females have three caudal lobes while those producing males have five. 

 Malloch (1915-17 b: 224-225) cites Needham's descriptions of this species. 



Larva. — (No larvae are available to the writer for a comparison with this stage of 

 Epiphragma solatrix, but from Needham's characterization, and manuscript notes on speci- 

 mens taker at Ithaca, New York, by the writer, the following differences seem to hold): 



