70 Transactions. 



and immediately collapsed into a state of anaesthesia on being wounded 

 by the spider's fang. For a few seconds a few faint vibrations or tremulous 

 motions of the wings were the only signs of life in the anaesthetized moths. 

 With a view to testing and ascertaining how long any visible signs of life 

 remained in the insects after receiving the spider's venom, I collected several 

 and placed them under an inverted glass in a cool and shady place. With 

 the males faint signs of life could be detected in the antennae, m some in- 

 stances, on the second day. The females lived longer. By the aid of a 

 strong lens very slight twitchings of the antennae and the extremity of the 

 ovipostor could be detected on the third day. 



In submitting these notes to the Society I am fully aware that the same 

 results would follow m a greater or lesser degree with all the insects on which 

 spiders subsist, especially those of the genus Efeira. The hepialid moth 

 referred to in these notes is, so far as I have observed or have otherwise 

 known, unquestionably the largest species of insect destroyed by a native 

 spider. The peculiar potency of the spider's venom preserved the large 

 bodies of the moths, and thus enabled the animals to subsist on them for 

 several days before they became unfit for food. Many more moths were 

 killed than were consumed. But spiders are equally liable to be attacked 

 and destroyed by an almost precisely similar method to that by which they 

 despatch their prey or render them comatose for several days before bemg 

 devoured. The two large and beautiful species of native wasps [Salius 

 fugax Fabricius and S. carhonarius Smith) hunt large spiders, sting them and 

 render them torpid, to be dragged to their nests and then torn to pieces 

 to be put into the clay cells to feed the young wasp-larvae when they emerge 

 from the eggs. A more remarkable case of parasitism, or reciprocal para- 

 sitism, is that of the small fly (species unknown at present) that destroys 

 the spider after being devoured by it. The spider while consuming the 

 viscera of the fly also swallows its eggs uninjured. The latter m due time 

 develop into larvae, which grow rapidly by subsisting on the viscera of the 

 spider, and duly destroy it. 



Art. XL— On Two Blepharocerids from New Zealand. 



By C. G. Lamb, M.A., B.Sc, Clare College, Cambridge. 



Communicated by G. V. Hudson, F.E.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 1st May, 1912.] 



Among the insects presented to the Zoological Museum at Cambridge by 

 Mr. G. V. Hudson there are many interesting species, but one of the most 

 striking points is the presence of two species of the family Blepharocendae. 

 The members of this family form a very isolated group, which occur m 

 special localities in various parts of the globe. They apparently form a 

 decadent family which has specialized in habit so as to maintain its exist- 

 ence, and the various members of it are usually found by mountain-streams 

 which are highly aerated, in the waters of which the extraordinary larvae 

 and pupae live. Accounts of the habits and morphology will be found 

 in a paper " On the Net- veined Midges of North America," by V. L. 

 Kellogg, Proceedings, California Academy of Sciences, 3rd series. Zoology, 



